Reading POTS
by xstormchildx
Summary: The older generation comes across the POTS books.  Find out what happens when they all get together to read them.
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce. _

_Authors Note:__ I saw a story like this where the characters from the Lioness quartet found and read the first book in the series. I loved it! This is my favorite series so I would like to do something like that with this fiction. Unfortunately, when I got ready to post it I saw that another author had already posted a similar story in here. I decided to go ahead and post mine since I had already gotten the first chapter done. So __Dom-Loves-Kel__ I apologize but I'm really not trying to steal your idea or anything. I hope you're not too mad at me! _

_Also, these chapters may tend to be a little long. Each chapter I'm doing is the entire chapter of the book. If it ends up being too long, I may change that, but for now that's how I'm writing it. _

_And now, ON WITH THE STORY!_

* * *

Prologue 

The Scanran war was over and most of the knights of the realm had returned to the capital for a much needed and deserved rest. Unfortunately, Lord Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak hadn't been getting much rest. Since his return to Corus he had been plagued with the strangest dreams. His dreams had consisted of his ex-squire throughout her training to become a knight, and then he would inexplicably end up at the Chamber of Ordeal. He felt as if he was being drawn to the chamber and it had something to do with Kel. That thought had terrified him.

He resisted going for as long as he could but eventually gave in and snuck into the chapel one night when he just couldn't take it anymore. After swearing in every language he knew and calling himself ten kinds of crazy, he anxiously approached the doors to the chamber. Nervously, he opened the doors and peeked inside. He frowned. It was empty. About to turn away he looked down and saw a stack of books on the floor. His initial fear of the chamber forgotten, he gathered them up and sat down on the closest bench to examine them.

Curiously, he flipped open the first book and began to read. His face broke into a huge grin and he slammed the book shut. Grabbing up the rest he rushed back to his quarters. This was just too good to keep to himself! He couldn't wait to show everyone else!


	2. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce. _

* * *

Raoul tapped his knee impatiently as he sat in his chair. Where was everybody? Didn't they get his messages? Everyone should be arriving to the suite that he and his wife Buri shared any minute now. The servants had already brought all the refreshments he had requested and he had made sure there was enough seating for everyone. He jumped to his feet as a knock sounded at the door. Yanking it open he grinned at his old friend Alanna and her husband George.

Alanna laughed, "What's got you so excited you can barely keep still?" she asked.

"You'll see," Raoul replied as he ushered them in. "But you're going to have to wait until everyone else arrives to find out."

Buri came out of their bedroom to greet and talk with their guests as more people arrived. The guests included Sir Myles, Gareth the Younger, Numair, Daine, the dragon Kitten, King Jonathan and Queen Thayet, and surprisingly Lord Wyldon. Alanna frowned when Lord Wyldon entered the room and raised her eyebrows at Raoul questioningly. Raoul ignored her and sat down once everyone had arrived.

"So Raoul," the king said curiously, "you mentioned that you had something you wanted to share with all of us. May I ask what it is?"

Raoul picked up a book from the table next to his chair and held it up for the room to see. "I think I found something that we would all be very interested to hear," he said.

"First Test," Alanna read aloud and then frowned. "What is _that_ supposed to be?"

"This, my dear Lioness," Raoul answered, eyes twinkling, "Is a detailed account of our very own Lady Knight Keladry's first page year. Almost all of it is from her point of view."

Gareth, or Gary as he was known to his friends, snorted in disbelief. "Raoul, I think you've been hitting the wine bottle too hard again."

"I believe what Gary is trying to say," Jon said mildly, "is how could anyone possibly know her point of view except her?"

"Unless she wrote it," interjected Daine sensibly. Kitten trilled her agreement.

"She didn't," George said, examining the book in his hands. "It's written by someone callin' themselves Tamora Pierce."

Raoul jumped and looked around in surprise. When had George . . . scowling he snatched the book back. "Who cares" he cried. "Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"It could be a fun way to pass the day," Thayet offered. The others nodded in agreement.

Grinning, Raoul sat back and opened the book. "Shall I begin?" he asked. With that, he began to read.

**Chapter 1, Decisions.**

**Alanna the Lioness, the King's Champion, could hardly contain her glee. Baron Piers of Mindelan had written to King Jonathan to say that his daughter wished to be a page. Alanna fought to sit still as she watched Wyldon of Cavall, the royal training master, read the baron's letter. Seated across his desk from them the king watched the training master as sharply as his Champion did. Lord Wyldon was known for his dislike of female warriors. **

Alanna snorted. "That's an understatement," she muttered.

Wyldon shrugged in response. "That was true at the time," he replied. Everyone in the room stared at him.

"What do you mean _at the time_?" Alanna blurted out.

"I may have changed some of my opinions since then. Please continue Raoul." He ignored the fact that everyone was staring at him in disbelief. Raoul shrugged and continued.

**It had been ten long years since the proclamation that girls might attempt a page's training. Alanna had nearly given up hope that such a girl – or the kind of family that would allow her to do so – existed in Tortall, but at last she had come forward. **

"Wait a minute," Buri interrupted. "I thought this was from Kel's point of view."

Raoul glared at his wife, annoyed that he'd been interrupted again. "I said it was _mostly_ from her point of view. I haven't gotten there yet."

"Well excuse me for asking," she retorted.

**Keladry of Mindelan would not have to hide her sex for eight years as Alanna had done. Keladry would prove to the world that girls could be knights. And she would not be friendless. Alanna had plans to help Keladry through the first few years. It never occurred to the Champion that anyone might object.**

Alanna glared at Wyldon across the room from her.

**Alanna half turned to see Wyldon better. Surely he'd read the letter at least twice! From this side the puffy scars were starkly visible; Wyldon's right arm was in a sling yet from that fight. Alanna rubbed fingers that itched with the urge to apply healing magic. Wyldon had the idea that suffering pain made a warrior stronger. He would not thank her if she tried to heal him now. **

**Goddess bless, she thought tiredly. How will I ever get on with him if I'm to help this girl Keladry?**

"Whoa, hold on!" Alanna cried. "How could this Tamora Pierce know that? How could anyone know what I was thinking at the time?"

"Good point, where exactly did you find this book Raoul?" Myles asked.

Raoul shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The chamber," he muttered.

Everyone gasped. "The Chamber of Ordeal?" Jon cried. "Mithros Raoul, whatever possessed you to go there?" Raoul quickly explained about being drawn to the chamber through dreams and what he found there. They all exchanged glances before looking back at him.

"I guess someone wants us to know the whole story," Myles said at last. He picked up a glass of wine and settled in more comfortably. "Continue on then Raoul."

**Wyldon was not flexible: he'd proved that to the entire court over and over. If he were any stiffer, Alanna thought wryly, I'd paint a design on him and use him for a shield. **

That drew laughs from everyone but Wyldon who frowned.

**He's got no sense of humor and he rejects change just because it's change.**

"What's wrong with honoring tradition?" Wyldon muttered. Everyone ignored him.

**Still, she had to admit that his teaching worked. **

"Ha!" Wyldon shouted.

**During the Immortals War of the spring and early summer, when legendary creatures had joined with the realm's human enemies to take the kingdom, the squires and pages had been forced into battle. They had done well, thanks to their training by Wyldon and the teachers he had picked.**

"Just cause you're a good teacher, doesn't mean I have to like you," Alanna replied crossly.

**At last Lord Wyldon returned the letter to King Jonathan, who placed it on his desk. "The baron and the baroness of Mindelan are faithful servants of the crown," the king remarked. "We would not have this treaty with the Yamani Islands were it not for them. You will have read that their daughter received some warrior training at the Yamani court, so it would appear that Keladry had an aptitude."**

"That's an understatement," Wyldon muttered. Everyone stared at him. "What? She does."

**Lord Wyldon resettled his arm in its sling. "I did not agree to this, Your Majesty."**

**Alanna was about to say that he didn't have to agree when she saw the king give the tiniest shake of the head. Clenching her jaws, she kept her remark to herself as King Jonathan raised his eyebrows. **

"**Your predecessor agreed," he reminded Wyldon. "And you, my lord, implied agreement when you accepted the post of training master."**

"**That is a lawyer's reply, sire," Wyldon replied stiffly, a slight flush rising in his clean-shaven cheeks.**

"I still think so," Wyldon remarked

"**Then here is a king's: we desire this girl to train as a page."**

**And that is that, Alanna thought satisfied. She might be the kind of knight who would argue with her king, at least in private, but Wyldon would never let himself do so. **

"Only in private huh," Jon smirked. "When did that start?" Everyone chuckled as Alanna flushed and muttered to herself about smart-mouthed kings.

**The training master absently rubbed the arm in its linen sling. At last he bowed in his chair. "May we compromise, sire?"**

**Alanna stiffened. She hated that word! "Com—" she began to say.**

**The king silenced her with a look. "What do you want, my lord?"**

"**In all honesty," said the training master, thinking aloud, "I had thought that our noble parents loved their daughters too much to place them in so hard a life."**

The women in the room stiffened in annoyance.

"**Not everyone is afraid to do anything new," Alanna replied sharply.**

"_**Lioness,"**_** said the king, his voice dangerously quiet. Alanna clenched her fists. What was going on? Was Jonathan inclined to give way to the man who'd saved his children?**

"I didn't give way," Jon argued. "I was just willing to compromise."

Thayet rolled her eyes. "You gave way," she stated. "Deal with it."

**Wyldon's eyes met her squarely. "Your bias is known Lady Alanna." To the king he said, "Surely the girl's parents cannot be aware of the difficulties she will encounter."**

"**Baron Piers and Lady Ilane are not fools," replied King Jonathan. "They have given us three good, worthy knights already."**

**Lord Wyldon gave a reluctant nod. Ander, Inness, and Conal of Mindelan **_**were**_** credits to their training. The realm would feel the loss of Anders – whose war wounds could never heal entirely – from the active duty rolls. It would take years to replace those who were killed or maimed in the Immortals War.**

Everyone paused, remembering the friends they had lost in that awful war.

"**Sire, please, think this through," Wyldon said. "We need the realm's **_**sons**_**. Girls are fragile, more emotional, easier to frighten. They are not as strong in their arms and shoulders as men. They tire easily. This girl would get any warriors who serve with her killed on some dark night."**

The room erupted in shouts of outrage from the women. Husbands grabbed their wives to keep them from getting up. Wyldon held up his hands.

"I was wrong," he cried. "I admit I was wrong! I believe she's proven that already." Grumbling, the women settled back down. When Raoul was sure his wife wasn't going to jump up and attack Wyldon, he sat back and picked up the book to resume.

**Alanna started to get up. This time King Jonathan walked out from behind his desk. Standing beside his Champion, he gripped one of her shoulders, keeping her in her chair. **

"**But I will be fair," Wyldon continued. His brown eyes were hard. "Let her be on probation for a year. By the end of the summer field camp, if she has not convinced me of her ability to keep up, she must go home."**

"How is that fair?" Buri complained.

"**Who judges her fitness?" inquired the king. **

**Wyldon's lips tightened. "Who but the training master, sire? I have the most experience in evaluating the young for their roles as future knights."**

**Alanna turned to stare at the king. "No **_**boy**_** has ever undergone a probationary period!" she cried.**

"Well they haven't," Alanna mumbled. George patted her shoulder sympathetically.

**Wyldon raised his good shoulder in a shrug. "Perhaps they should. For now, I will not tender my resignation over this, provided I judge whether this girl stays or goes in one year's time."  
**

**The king weighed the request. Alanna fidgeted. She knew Lord Wyldon meant his threat, and the crown needed him. Too many great nobles, dismayed by the changes in Tortall since Jonathan's coronation, felt that Wyldon was their voice at court. If he resigned, the king and queen would find it hard to get support for their future changes.**

"Well that's true enough," Gary offered.

"Shut up Gary!" was Alanna's response.

**At last King Jonathan said, "Though we do not always agree, my lord, you know I respect you because you are fair and honorable. I would hate to see that fairness, that honor, tainted in any way. Keladry of Mindelan shall have a year's probation." **

**Lord Wyldon nodded, then inspected the nails on his good hand. "There is one other matter," he remarked slowly. He looked at Alanna. "Do you plan to involve yourself in the girl's training? It will not do."**

**Alanna bristled. "What is that supposed to mean?"**

"**You wish to help the girl, understandably." Wyldon spoke as though the mild words made his teeth hurt. "But you rarely deal with the lads, my lady. If you help the girl, it will be said that you eased her path in some special way. There are rumors that your successes are due to your magical Gift."**

"Only by those who don't know ye, lass," George told Alanna, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Alanna relaxed a bit.

"**By the Goddess," snapped Alanna, crimson with fury. If the king had not forbidden her to challenge men on personal grounds years before, she would have taken Wyldon out to the dueling court and made him regret his words.**

Thayet leaned over to Alanna and whispered, "You should have anyway."

"**Alanna, for heaven's sake, you know the gossip," King Jonathan said. "Stop acting as if you'd never heard it before." He looked at Wyldon. "And you suggest . . ."**

"**Lady Alanna must keep from all contact with the girl," Wyldon replied firmly. "Even a moment's conversation will give rise to suspicion."**

"**All contact?" cried Alanna. "But she'll be the only girl among over twenty boys! She'll have questions – I could help –" She realized what she had said and fell silent.**

**King Jonathan gently patted her shoulder. "Is there no other way?" he asked.**

**Wyldon shook his head. "I fear not, sire. The Mindelan girl will be the cause of trouble as it is, without the Lioness hovering over her."**

**The king thought it over. At last he sighed. "Lord Wyldon has the right of it. You must stay away from Keladry of Mindelan, Alanna."**

"**But Jonathan – **_**sire – **_**" she pleaded, not believing he would do this.**

"**That is an **_**order,**_** lady knight. If you cannot accept that, say as much now, and I will find you work elsewhere."**

"That was pushing things a little too far Jon," Numair said shaking his head.

**She stared at him for a long moment, lips tight. At last she got to her feet. "Don't tax yourself. I'll find knight's work myself," she told him. "As far from Corus as possible." She stalked out of the room, slamming the door in her wake.**

**The men stared at the door. Each of them was trying to remember if Alanna the Lioness had ever spoken to Jonathan in that tone before.**

"The answer to that question would be no," Alanna smirked. "Serves you right."

Raoul looked up eyes twinkling. "Now we get to the good stuff," he said excitedly. "You have no idea how hard it was for me to wait. This is all new for me too!"

**Baron Piers and Lady Ilane of Mindelan watched Keladry read the reply from the training master. A Tortallan who did not know them well might have thought the man and woman felt nothing, and that their ten-year-old daughter was only concerned, not upset. That was far from true. The family had spent the last six years living in the Yamani Islands, where displays of deep emotion were regarded as shameful. To get the Yamanis to respect them, they had all learned to hide their feelings. Home in Mindelan again, they still acted as Yamanis, hiding uneasiness and even distress behind still faces.**

**Kel struggled to reread the letter, afraid to say a word. If she did, her shaking voice would give her away. Instead she waited as she tried to control the anger and sense of betrayal that filled her.**

Jon and Wyldon looked at each other guiltily.

"**It is not the reply we expected," Baron Piers said at last. He was a short, stocky man. Keladry had his build, delicate nose, and dreamy, long-lashed hazel eyes. Her brown hair was several shades lighter than his. When Kel did not reply he continued, "His declaration of ten years ago was that girls could become pages. Nothing was said of probation then."**

"Because there wasn't supposed to _be_ probation," Alanna whispered hotly.

"**Keladry?" asked her mother. "You can say what you feel. We are no longer among the Yamanis." She was a thin, elegant woman, taller than her husband by nearly a head, with hair that had gone white very early in life and a deep musical voice. All Keladry had from her was height. At the age of ten the girl was already five feet tall and still growing.**

"So in other words, nothing like you Alanna," Gary joked. Alanna glared at Gary while her friends all grinned.

**It took Kel a moment to register what her mother had said. She tried to smile. "But, Mama, I don't want to get into bad habits, in case I go back with you." She looked at Lord Wyldon's letter again. She had expected to be a page when her parents returned to the Yamani Islands in eighteen months. From the tone of this letter, perhaps she ought not to count on that.**

"**It isn't right," she said quietly, even fiercely. "No boys have probation. I'm supposed to be treated the same."**

Alanna smirked at Jon and Wyldon. "See, I told you."

"**Don't give your answer yet," Baron Piers said quickly. "Take the letter with you. Think about what it says. You're not hasty, Kel – this is a bad time to start."**

"**Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short," added her mother in Yamani. "Be as stone."**

**Kel bowed Yamani-style, palms flat on her thighs. Then she went to find someplace quiet to think.**

**First she went to her room beside the nursery. That wasn't a good choice. Two of her brothers' young families lived at Mindelan. With the children and their nursemaids next door, there was enough noise to drown out trumpets. No one had seen her creep into the room, but her oldest nephew saw her leaving it. Nothing would do for him but that she give him a piggyback ride around the large room. After that, all of the older children wanted rides of their own. Once that was done, the nursemaids helped Kel to escape.**

Everyone chuckled at that.

**She tried to hole up by the fountain in the castle garden, but her sisters-in-law were there, sewing and gossiping with their maids. The kitchen garden was her next choice, but two servants were there gathering vegetables. She stared longingly at her favorite childhood spot, the highest tower in the castle, and felt a surge of anger. Before they had gone to the islands her brother Conal had teasingly held her over the edge of the tower balcony. Until that time she had visited the top of that tower at least once a day. Now the thought of it made her shudder.**

"Oh so _that's_ why she was scared of heights," Wyldon remarked, then he frowned. "The next time I see that brother of hers I might have a few words with him. Raoul growled and nodded in agreement.

**There were hundreds of places she might use around the castle, but they were all indoors. She needed to be **_**outside**_**. She was trying to think of a place when she remembered the broad, shallow Domin River, which ran through the woods. No one would be there. She could sit by the water and think in peace.**

"**Miss?" called a voice as she strode through the inner gate in the castle wall. "Where might you be going?"**

**Kel turned to face the man-at-arms who had called to her. "I don't know."**

**The man held out a small horn. "If you're not going to the village, you need one of these." He spoke carefully. The baron and his family had been home only for three months, and the people were still not sure what to make of these strange, Yamani-like nobles. "They told you the rule, surely. Any time you go outside the castle or village, you take a horn. You never know when one of them monsters, centaurs or giants or whatever, will show its face."**

**Kel frowned. The legendary creatures that had returned to their world five years before had an unnerving way of showing up when they were least expected. For every one that was harmless or willing to get on with humans, there were fistfuls that weren't. Bands of men-at-arms now roamed throughout the fiefdom, searching for hostile visitors and listening for the horn call, which meant someone was in trouble.**

**I'm not going very far, she wanted to argue, but the Yamanis had taught her to obey a soldier's commands. She accepted the horn with a quiet thank-you and slung it over one shoulder. **

"Good girl," Raoul nodded.

**Checking that Lord Wyldon's letter was tucked securely in the front of her shirt, she left the road that led from the castle gate and headed through their orchards. Once past the cultivated trees she entered the woods, following a trail down to the water.**

**By the time she could see a glint of silver through the trees she had worked up a mild sweat. The day was warm and the walk was longer than she had thought it would be. When a rock worked its way into her shoe, she sat on a log to get it out.**

"I hate it when that happens," Gary added.

"**It's not right," she muttered to herself, undoing the laces that held the leather around her ankle. "You're a page for four years. That's how it's been done for centuries. Now they're going to change it?" When she up-ended the shoe and shook it, nothing fell out. She stuffed a hand inside, feeling around for the stone. "And just because I'm a girl? They ought to treat me the same. All I want is the same chance as the boys. No more, no less. That's right, isn't it?" **

"Yes," Buri, Alanna, Thayet, Daine and Myles chorused.

**She winced as a sharp edge nipped one of her fingers. Working more carefully, she wriggled the bit of rock out of a fold in the leather. "Probation is not fair, and knighthood training has to **_**be **_**fair."**

"Exactly," Alanna smirked.

**The stone was out; her mind was made up. If they couldn't treat her the same as they would the boys, then she wasn't going to settle for a half portion. She would have to become a warrior some other way.**

"WHAT?" the entire room shouted.

"But she changed her mind right?" Jon cried alarmed.

**Kel sighed and put her shoe back on. The problem was that now she would have to wait. The Queen's Riders took volunteers when they were fifteen or older. The queen's ladies, those who were expected to ride, handle a bow, and deal with trouble at Queen Thayet's side, went to her in their fifteenth year as well. And who was to say Kel wouldn't be living in the Yamani Islands by then?**

"This can't be right," Raoul huffed.

"Something must have happened to make her change her mind," Daine rationalized. "Just keep reading."

**One thing she knew: convent school, the normal destination for noble girls her age, was not a choice. **

Alanna smiled as she was reminded of her own decision at that age.

**Kel had no interest whatever in ladylike arts, and even less interest in the skills needed to attract a husband or manage a castle. Even if she did, who would have her? Once she'd overheard her sisters-in-law comment that no man would be interested in a girl who was built along the lines of a cow.**

"Well that's just rude," Daine sniffed.

**She'd made the mistake of repeating that comment to her mother, when Kel's plan to be a page had first come up. Her mother had gone white with fury and had put her daughters-in-law to mending several years' worth of old linens. **

Buri grinned. "I think I like her mother," she remarked.

**It had taken a great deal of persuasion for Kel to convince her mother that her quest for knighthood did not mean she wanted to settle for second best, knowing she would never marry. Getting Ilane of Mindelan to agree to her being a page had been a negotiation every bit as complicated as what her father had done to get the Yamanis to sign the treaty.**

"That's my girl," Raoul said.

**And see the good **_**that**_** did me, Kel thought with disgust. Lord Wyldon offers me second best anyway, and I won't take it. I could have saved my breath talking Mama around.**

"No, no, It'll be worth it," he encouraged.

**She was ready to get to her feet when the sound of bodies crashing through the brush made her look up. Gruff voices reached her ear.**

"**Hurry up!" a boy growled from near the river. "Do you want us t'get caught?"**

Everyone leaned forward in interest.

"**The Cow's at home," replied a second boy's voice. "She stays there all morning."**

**Kel stood, listening. If they were on the look out for her, then they were up to something bad. In just three months she had taught the local boys she was someone to respect. **

Wyldon grunted in amusement at that.

**Kel grabbed a sturdy fallen branch and ran toward the voices. Racing into open ground between the trees and river, she saw three village boys. They were about to throw a wriggling cloth sack into the Domin.**

Daine gasped.

**Her mouth settled into a tight, angry line; her hazel eyes glittered. "Put that **_**down!"**_** she cried.**

**The boys whirled, startled, dropping their burden on a half-submerged tree limb. One of them punched the smallest in the shoulder. "Home all morning, eh?"**

**Kel shouted, "I know all of you! And **_**you**_** know the law in Mindelan – no killing of animals without the baron's leave!"**

Daine smiled and nodded in approval.

**The biggest, taller than she by half a head, advanced. The other two were right behind him. "Who's to make us stop, Cow?"**

**The Yamanis had taught her well. She waded into the boys, using her club as an equalizer. She whacked them in the belly so they couldn't breathe, and on the collarbones and biceps so they couldn't raise their arms. One youth punched her face; he caught her on the outside of one eye. She changed her grip on her branch and swept his feet from under him, then stood on one of his arms.**

Everyone was silently cheering her on at this point.

**Another lad grabbed a branch and swung at her; she blocked it with hers, then rammed the length on wood into his stomach. He doubled over, gasping. Kel shoved him into the third boy. Down they went into a tumble. When the untangled themselves, they ran. Their comrade also chose to make his escape. **

"Showed them," Daine quietly cheered.

**Kel looked around for the sack. The current had tugged the tree limb on which is rested out into the deeper faster water at the center of the river. She didn't hesitate, but waded into the water. Kel was a good swimmer and the river here was fairly shallow. She doubted that whatever small creatures were struggling in the sack could swim. **

**Movement on the far back made her look up. What she saw made her halt, cold water rushing around her thighs. Something black and strange-looking walked out from under the shelter of the trees. It looked like a giant furred spider nearly five feet tall with one difference. The thing had a human head. It stared at Kel, then grinned broadly to reveal sharp teeth.**

"Oh no," Thayet whispered alarmed. "She's just a child." Everyone's eyes had widened in surprise and alarm at the mention of the monster. They all knew what it was and had exchanged nervous glances at this development. What chance did a lone, unarmed ten-year-old stand against this nightmare.

**Her flesh crawled; hairs stood up on her arms and the back of her neck. Spidren, she thought, recognizing it from descriptions. Spidrens in our woods.**

**Like most of the legendary creatures that now prowled the human realms, they were virtually immortal, immune to disease and old age. They died only when something or someone took pains to kill them. They fed on animals and human blood. No one could get spidrens to make peace with human beings.  
**

"Which is exactly why you need to get away from it very quickly," Raoul murmured to Kel, forgetting she couldn't hear him.

**The thing reared up on its back legs, revealing a light-colored shaft at the base of its belly. From it the spidren squirted a high flying gray stream that soared into the air over the river. **

"Move, move," shouted Daine.

**Kel threw herself to the side, away from the gray stream and the sack she was trying to catch. The stuff was like rope. She realized it was a web when it fell in a long line across the surface of the water. It had missed her by only a foot. **

Alanna drew in a sharp breath and ground her teeth in mixed relief and fear for Kel.

**The spidren bent and snipped the rope off from its belly spinneret with a clawed leg. Swiftly it began to wind the length of web around another clawed foot. As it dragged through the water, the sticky thing caught on the cloth sack. The spidren reeled in its catch as a fisherman might pull in a line. **

**Kel brought the horn up to her mouth. She blew five hard blasts and might have continued to blow until help came, as the spidren gathered up the sack. It discarded its web with one clawed foot, held the sack with a second, and reached into it with a third. The beast grinned, its eyes never leaving Kel, as it pulled out a wet and squirming kitten. **

Daine bit her lip and looked down.

**The horn fell from the girl's lips as the spidren looked the kitten over. It smacked its lips, then bit the small creature in half and began to chew.**

Numair took Daine's hand in his and the girl sent him a wobbly smile.

**Kel screamed and groped on the river bottom with both hands for ammunition. Coming up with a stone in each fist, she hurled the first. It soared past the spidren, missing it by inches. **

"Mithros girl, what are you doing?" George exclaimed. "Get away from that monster and keep blowin' that horn!"

**Her next stone caught it square in the head. It shrieked and began to climb the bluff that overlooked the river to its left, still holding the sack.**

"Apparently she's not doing half bad," Alanna smiled turning to her husband.

**In the distance Kel heard the sound of horns. Help was on its way – for her, but not for those kittens. She scrabbled for more stones and plunged across the river, battling the water to get to the same shore as the monster. It continued to climb the rocky face of the bluff until it reached the summit just as Kel scrambled onto the land. **

Wyldon groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "Will somebody please stop that girl before she gets herself killed!"

**Once she was on solid ground, she began to climb the bluff, her soaked feet digging for purchase in soft dirt and rock. Above the spidren leaned over the edge of the bluff to leer at her. It reached into the sack, dragged out a second kitten and began to eat it.**

**Kel still had a rock in her right hand. She hurled it as hard as she had ever thrown a ball to knock down a target. **

"Of course she would," Wyldon groaned.

**It smashed the spidren's nose. The thing shrieked and hissed, dropping the rest of its meal.**

"Nice shot," Buri cheered.

**Kel's foot slipped. She looked down to find a better place to set it and froze. She was only seven feet above the water, but the distance seemed more like seventy to her. A roar filled her ears and her head spun. Cold sweat trickled through her clothes. She clung to the face of the bluff with both arms and legs, sick with fear.**

**Leaving its sack on the ground, the spidren threw a loop of web around a nearby tree stump. When it was set the creature began to lower itself over the side of the bluff. Its hate-filled eyes were locked on the girl, whose terror had frozen her in place.**

Raoul and Wyldon both swore.

**Kel was deaf and blind to the spidren's approach. Later she could not recall hearing the monster's scream as arrows thudded into its flesh, just as she could not remember the arrival of her brother Anders and his men-at-arms.**

"Oh thank Mithros!" Jonathan exclaimed. Everyone else sighed and relaxed in relief.

**With the spidren's death, its web rope snapped. The thing hurtled past Kel to splash into the river.**

**A man-at-arms climbed up to get her, gently prying her clutching fingers from their holds. Only when Kel was safely on shore, seated on a flat rock, was she able to tell them why she had tried to kill a spidren with only stones for weapons. Someone climbed the bluff to retrieve the sack of kittens while Kel stared, shivering, at the spidren's body.**

"Yes, that was a little too close for comfort," Thayet remarked lightly.

**Her brother Anders dismounted stiffly and limped over to her. Reaching into his belt-pouch, he pulled out a handful of fresh mint leaves, crushed them in one gloved hand, and held them under Kel's nose. She breathed their fresh scent in gratefully.**

"**You're supposed to have real weapons when you go after something that's twice as big as you are," he told her mildly. "Didn't the Yamanis teach you that?" **

"It seems she missed that class," Gary commented in amusement.

**During the years most of their family had been in the Islands, Anders, Inness, and Conal, the three oldest sons of the manor, had served the crown as pages, squires, then knights. All they knew of Kel's experiences there came in their family's letters.**

"**I had to do something," Kel explained.**

"**Calling for help and staying put would have been wiser," he pointed out. **

"Yes it would have," Myles agreed.

"**Leave the fighting to real warriors. Here we are." A man-at-arms put the recovered sack into his hands. Anders in turn put the bag in Kel's lap.**

**Nervously she pulled the bag open. Five wet kittens, their eyes barely opened, turned their faces up to her and protested their morning's adventure. "I'll take you to our housekeeper," Kel promised them. "She knows what to do with kittens."**

Daine smiled, "I knew I liked her for a reason."

**Once the animals were seen to and she had changed into a clean gown and slippers, Kel went to her father's study. With her came a small group of animals: two elderly dogs, three cats, two puppies, a kitten, and a three-legged pine marten. **

"Now why does that sound familiar?" Numair remarked tweaking Daine's nose. Daine blushed.

**Kel gently moved them out of the way and closed the door before they could sneak into the room. Anders was there, leaning on a walking stick as he talked to their parents. All three adults fell silent and looked at Kel.**

"**I'll do it," she said quietly. "I want the training, and the right weapons. Anders was right. It was stupid to go after a spidren with stones."**

Everyone cheered.

"**And if the send you home at the end of a year?" asked Ilane of Mindelan**

**Kel took a deep breath. "Then I'll know more than I do now," she said firmly.**

"Smart girl," George laughed.

**Piers looked at his wife, who nodded. "Then we'd best pack," said Ilane, getting to her feet. "You leave the day after tomorrow." Passing Kel on her way to the door, her mother lightly touched the eye the village boy had hit. It was red, blue, and puffy – not the worst black eye Kel had ever gotten. "Let's also get a piece of raw meat to put on this," suggested the woman.**

"Yep, definitely like her mother," Buri smiled.

**The next evening, Kel made her way to the stables to visit her pony, Chipper, to explain to him that the palace would supply her with a knight's mount. The pony lipped her shirt in an understanding way. He at least would be in good hands: Ander's oldest son was ready to start riding, and he loved the pony.**

Daine smiled. Not everyone remembers to explain things to the People.

"**I thought I might find you here," a voice said as Kel fed Chip an apple. She squeaked in surprise. For a man with a limp and a cane, Anders moved very quietly. "You know we'll take care of him."**

**Kel nodded and picked up a brush to groom the pony's round sides. "I know. I'll miss him all the same."**

**Anders leaned against a post "Kel . . . "**

**She looked at him. Since the incident on the river the day before, she'd caught Anders watching her. She barely remembered him before their departure to the Islands, six years ago – he had already been a knight, handsome and distant in his armor, always riding somewhere. In the months since their return to Mindelan, she had come to like him. **

Myles smiled, he remembered Anders when he was a page. He had always liked him.

"**Something the matter?" she asked.**

**Anders sighed. "Do you realize it's going to be hard? Maybe impossible" They'll make it tough. There's hazing for one thing. I don't know when the custom started, but it's called 'earning your way'. It's just for the first-year pages. The senior ones make you run stupid little errands, like fetching gloves and picking up things that get knocked over. You have to do it. Otherwise it's the same as saying you don't have to do what the older pages did, as if you think you're better than they are. And older pages play tricks on the young ones, and some of them will pick fights. Stand up for yourself, or they'll make your life a misery."**

"Good advice," said Alanna remembering Ralon of Malven.

"**In the rules they sent, fighting isn't allowed."**

"**Of course it's forbidden. If you're caught, they punish you. That's expected. What you must**_** never**_** do is tattle on another page, or say who you fought with. That's expected too. Tell them you fell down – that's what I always said. Otherwise no one will trust you. A boy told when I was a page. He finally left because no one would speak to him."**

Wyldon sighed. "I was wondering who had informed her of that annoying little tradition."

"**But they'll punish me for fighting?"**

"**With chores, extra lessons, things like that. You take every punishment, whatever it's for, and keep quiet."**

"**Like the Yamanis," she said, brushing loose hairs from Chipper's coat. "You don't talk – you obey."**

**Anders nodded. Just do what you're told. Don't complain. If you can't do it, say that you failed, not that you can't. No one can finish every task that's given. What you teachers **_**don't**_** want is excuses, or blaming someone else, or saying it's unfair. They **_**know**_** it's unfair. Do what you can, and take your punishment in silence."**

"Sweet of him to give her all this advice," Alanna commented. "I'm glad someone was able to." She sent a half-hearted glare and Jon and Wyldon.

**Kel nodded. "I can do that, I think."**

**Anders chuckled. "That's the strange thing – I believe you can. But Kel –"**

"I like her brother too!" Buri added.

**Kel went to Chip's far side, looking at Anders over the pony's back. "What?"**

**The young man absently rubbed his stiff leg. "Kel, all those things you learned in the Islands . . . "**

"**Yes?" she prodded when he fell silent again.**

"**You might want to keep them to yourself. Otherwise the pages might think you believe that you're better that they are. You don't want to be different, all right? At least, not any more different than you already are."**

"**Won't they want to learn new things?" she wanted to know. "I would."**

Myles chuckled. "Not everyone is so open-minded."

"**Not everyone's like you, Kel. Do what they teach you, no more. You'll save yourself heartache that way."**

**Kel smiled "I'll try," she told him.**

**Anders straightened with a wince. Don't be out here too long," he reminded her. "You're up before dawn."**

**Unlike normal dreams, in which time and places and people did strange things, this dream was completely true to Kel's memory. It began as she knelt before an altar and stared at the swords placed on it. The weapons were sheathed in pure gold rubbed a smooth and bright as glass. She was five years old again. **

"We get to read about her dreams as well!" Numair leaned in excitedly.

"**They are the swords given to the children of the fire goddess, Yama," a lady-in-waiting beside Kel said, awe in her soft voice. "The short sword is the sword of law. Without it, we are only animals. **

"What's wrong with that!" Daine demanded.

**The long sword is the sword of duty. It is the terrible sword, the killing sword." Her words struck a chord in Kel that left the little girl breathless. She liked the idea that duty was a killing sword. "Without duty," the lady continued, "duty to our lords, to our families, and to the law, we are less than animals."**

"She says that like it's a bad thing," Daine complained.

**Kel smelled burning wood. She looked around, curious. The large oil lamps that hung from the temple ceiling by thick cords smelled of perfume, not wood. Kel sniffed the air. She knew that fires were terrible on the Yamani Islands, where indoor walls were often paper screens and straw mats covered floors of polished wood.**

"I wonder why that is," Myles said half to himself.

**The lady-in-waiting got to her feet.**

**The temple doors crashed open. There was Kel's mother, Ilane, her outer kimono flapping open, her thick pale hair falling out of its pins. In her hands she carried a staff capped with a broad, curved blade. Her blue-green eyes were huge in her bone-white face.**

"This can't be good," George remarked.

"**Please excuse me," she told the lady-in-waiting, as calm and polite as any Yamani in danger, "but we must get out of here and find help. Pirates have attacked the cove and are within the palace."**

"Just as I thought, not good," George said.

**There was a thunder of shod feet on polished wood floors. Swords and axes crashed through the paper screens that formed the wall behind the altar. Scanrans – men already covered in blood and grime – burst into the room, fighting their way clear of the screens and their wooden frames.**

**An arm wrapped tight around Kel's ribs, yanking her from her feet. The lady-in-waiting had scooped her up in one arm and swords in the other. Faster than the raiders she ran to Ilane of Mindelan.**

**The lady tumbled to the ground. Kel slid out the door on her belly. Turning, too startled to cry, she saw the lady at her mother's feet. There was an arrow in the Yamani woman's back.**

"How awful," Daine said sadly.

**Ilane bent over the dead woman and took the swords. Hoisting them in one hand, she swung her weapon to her right and to her left. It sheared through the heavy cords that suspended five large oil lamps. They fell and shattered, spilling a flood of burning oil. It raced across the temple in the path of the raiders who were running toward them. When their feet began to burn, they halted, trying to put the fire out.**

Raoul chuckled. "That was pretty clever."

"You like her too, don't you!" Buri exclaimed.

Raoul nodded then continued to read.

"**Come on!" Kel's mother urged. "Hike up those skirts and **_**run!"**_

"No need to worry about decency when you life is at risk," Thayet laughed.

**Kel yanked her kimono up and fled with Ilane. They skidded and slipped over the polished floors in their Yamani sock-shoes, then turned down one corridor and another. Far down one passage they saw a new group of Scanrans. Kel and her mother ran around a corner. They tried another turning – it led to a dead end. They were trapped. They walls that now blocked them in on three sides were sturdy wood, too. They could have cut their way through paper ones. **

**Ilane turned. Scanrans armed with swords or axes blocked the way out.**

"Now they're in trouble," Jon commented.

"Just wait," Thayet said with a grin, "I think I know what happens next. You haven't seen her mother with a glaive."

**Ilane thrust the gold swords into Kel's arms and pushed her into a corner, then stood before her. "Get down and be quiet!" she said, gripping her weapon in both hands. "I think I can hold them off with this."**

"You really think she can?" Jon asked skeptically.

"Come join us ladies for our morning glaive exercises one time," Thayet urged. "You'll see what I mean."

**Kel put the swords behind her and huddled. The men came at her mother, laughing and joking in Scanran. She peeked around the edge of her mother's kimono. At that moment Ilane swung the bladed staff – glaive, in a wide side cut, slicing one pirate across the chest. Whipping it back to her left, she caught another of them in the throat. Blood struck Kel's face; even dreaming, she could smell it. Breathless, the sheathed swords poking into her back, she watched her mother lunge and retreat, using her skill and her longer weapon to hold the enemy off. Ilane killed a third and fourth attacker before a squad of guardsmen raced around the corner to finish the rest.**

"I think I might have to join you some time Thayet if she's as good as she sounds," Alanna said.

"You should," Thayet answered. "You won't regret it."

**When the pirates were dead, Kel's mother turned and reached a hand down to her. "Let's go find your father," she said quietly.**

**Kel grasped the hand, and let her mother pull her up to her feet. Then Kel gathered up the golden swords that had been trusted to them. **

**When they faced their rescuers, the guards knelt as one. They bowed to the woman and the girl, touching their heads to the bloody floor.**

"Now I see why the Baron and his wife were able to negotiate the treaty," Jon murmured impressed.

**Kel woke, breathing fast, her eyes shining. Her heart raced, she trembled all over. The dream was not scary; it was exciting. She loved it. She loved that it had all been real.**

"Interesting," Wyldon commented, "I would have thought that that would have scared a girl of her age."

Alanna grinned. "We aren't as easily scared as you think."

**I want to be like that, she told herself as she always did. I want to protect people. And I will. I **_**will**_**. I'll be a hero one day, just like Mama. Just like the Lioness.**

Alanna blushed.

**Nobody will kill two kittens in front of me then.**

Everyone laughed at that.

"Well that's the end of the first chapter," Raoul said.

"Oh don't stop there!" Daine begged.

"Yes, let's keep going," George said as he sat back and opened the book.

Raoul stared at George. How does he keep doing that? George looked up and smirked at him then looked down and began to read.


	3. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

_A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who responded! I'm really flattered. You have really encouraged me to keep this up. I may not get the next chapter up as quickly due to work and all but I assure you I'm trying my hardest. I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as you enjoyed the last!_

* * *

_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

"_Well that's the end of the first chapter," Raoul said._

"_Oh don't stop there!" Daine begged._

"_Yes, let's keep going," George said as he sat back and opened the book._

_Raoul stared at George. How does he keep doing that? George looked up and smirked at him then looked down and began to read._

* * *

**Chapter 2, Not So Welcome**

**Wyldon of Cavall nodded to Baron Piers, but his eyes were on Kel. He looked her over from top to toe, taking in every wrinkle and spot in her tunic and breeches and the fading bruise around her eye.**

"I'll bet she looked like trouble," Gary laughed

"Shut up Gary," Alanna, Raoul, and Buri chorused

**Kel met his gaze squarely. The training master was handsome, for all that he was completely bald on top. **

Alanna groaned. "Don't tell me she gets a crush on him."

Wyldon flushed at the thought.

**He wore what was left of his light brown hair cropped very short. A scar – so red and puffy, it had to be recent – ran from the corner of his eye across his right temple to dig a track through his hair to his ear. His right arm rested in a sling. His eyes were brown, his mouth wide; his chin was square with the hint of a cleft in it. His big hands were marked with scars. He dressed simply, in a pale blue tunic, a white shirt, and dark blue hose. She couldn't see his feet behind the big desk, but she suspected that his shoes were as sensible as the rest of him.**

Myles patted Alanna's arm. "That sounded more like a description, then a crush."

Alanna and Wyldon both sighed in relief.

**Even the Yamanis would say he's got too much stone in him, she thought, looking at the scuffed toes of her boots. He needs water to balance his nature. Peering through her lashes at the training master, she added, **_**Lots**_** of water. A century or two of it, maybe.**

Everyone laughed at that, even Wyldon. "I never had any idea what was going through that head of her's, she always had that damn mask on." Wyldon said. "I believe this will be very enlightening."

**Wyldon drummed his fingers on his desktop. At last he smiled tightly. "Be seated, please, both of you."**

**Kel and her father obeyed.**

**Wyldon took his own seat. "Well. Keladry, is it?" She nodded. "You understand that you are here on sufferance. You have a year in which to prove that you can keep up with the boys. If you do not satisfy me on that count, you will go home."**

"Still say it was unfair," Alanna muttered to herself.

**He's never said that to any boy, Kel thought, glad that her face would not show her resentment. He shouldn't be saying it to me. **

"Exactly," Alanna nodded.

**She kept her voice polite as she answered, "Yes, my lord."**

"**You will get no special privileges or treatment, despite your sex." Wyldon's eyes were stony. "I will not tolerate flirtations. If there is a boy in your room, the door must be open. The same is true if you are in a boy's room. Should you disobey, you will be sent home immediately."**

"Don't you think she's a little young to be worried about all that," Thayet remarked.

**Kel met his eyes. "Yes sir." She was talkative enough with her family, but not with outsiders. The chill that rose from Wyldon made her even quieter.**

**Piers shifted in his seat. "My daughter is only ten, Lord Wyldon. She's a bit young for that kind of thing."**

"See, I'm not the only on who thinks so," Thayet pointed out.

"**My experience with females is that they begin early," the training master said flatly.**

"EXCUSE ME!" Thayet cried rising up from her seat. Jonathan grabbed her and tried to pull her back down.

Daine started laughing. "I wonder just what experience caused you to think that, my lord," she said. The corner of Thayet's mouth twitched as she resumed her seat, while the rest of the room started laughing. Wyldon just frowned and crossed his arms. He looked suspiciously like he was sulking, but of course Lord Wyldon of Cavall did _not_ sulk! Therefore, let us just say he was clearly displeased.

**He ran a blunt-tipped finger down a piece of paper.**

"**It says here you claim on magical Gift," stated Lord Wyldon. "Is that so?"**

**Kel nodded.**

**Lord Wyldon put down the paper and leaned forward, clasping his hands on his neatly ordered desk. "In your father's day, the royal household always dined in the banquet hall. Now our royal family dines privately for the most part. On great holidays and on special occasions, feasts are held with the sovereigns, nobles, and guests in attendance. The pages are required to serve at such banquets. Also you are required to run errands for any lord or lady who asks."**

"**Has she a servant with her?" he asked Kel's father.**

"**No," Piers replied.**

"**Very well. Palace staff will tend her rooms. Have you any questions?" Wyldon asked Kel.**

**Yes, she wanted to say. Why won't you treat me like you treat the boys? Why can't you be **_**fair?**_

Because I was a fool, Wyldon thought to himself, though he would never say so out loud. Especially in this group, Alanna would never let him live it down.

**She kept it to herself. Growing up in a diplomat's house, she had learned how to read people. A good look at Wyldon's square, stubborn face with its hard jaw had told Kel that words would mean nothing to this man. She would have to prove to him that she was as good as any boy. And she would.**

"That ye would, lass," George added. He looked up, "Smart little thing."

"**No questions, my lord," she told him quietly.**

"**There is a chamber across the hall for your farewells," Wyldon told Piers. "Salma will come for Keladry and guide her to her assigned room. No doubt her baggage already is there." He looked at Kel. "Unpack your things neatly. When the supper bell rings, stand in the hall with the new boys. Sponsors – older pages who show the new ones how things are done – must be chosen before we go down to the mess."**

**After Kel said goodbye to her father, she found Salma waiting for her in the hall. The woman was short and thin, with frizzy brown hair and large, dark eyes. She wore the palace uniform for women servants, a dark skirt and a white blouse. A large ring laden with keys hung from her belt. As she took Kel to her new room, Salma asked if Kel had brought a personal servant.**

**When the girl replied that she hadn't, Salma told her, "In that case, I'll assign a servant to you. We bring you hot water for washup and get your fire going in the morning. We also do your laundry and mending, make beds, sweep, and so on. And if you play any tricks on the servants, you'll do your laundry and bed-making for the rest of the year. It's not our job to look after weapons, equipment, or armor, mind. That's what you're here to learn."**

"She's new," Raoul commented.

"Yes, I think I like her," Alanna added. "She sounds like she doesn't take any nonsense from anybody."

**She briskly led the way through one long hall as she talked. Now they passed a row of doors. Each bore a piece of slate with a name written in chalk. "That's my room," Salma explained, pointing. "The ground floor here is the pages' wing. Squires are the next floor up. If you need supplies or special cleaning and sewing, or if you are ill, come to me."**

**Kel looked at her curiously. "My brothers didn't mention you."**

"**Timon Greendale, our headman, reorganized service here six years ago," Salma replied. "I was brought in five years back – just in time to meet your brother Conal. Don't worry. I won't hold it against you."**

"That's two marks against him," Raoul growled.

**Kel smiled wryly. Conal had that effect on people.**

**Salma halted in front of the last door in the hall. There was no name written on the slate. "I told the men to put your things here." She brushed the slate with her fingertips. "Your name has been washed off. I have to get my chalk. You may as well unpack."**

"**Thank you," Kel said.**

"**No need to thank me" was Salma's calm reply. "I do what they pay me to." She hesitated, then added, "If you need anything, even if it's just a sympathetic ear, tell me." She rested a warm hand on Kel's shoulder for a moment, then walked away.**

"Now, I know I like her," Alanna grinned. Buri nodded, and added her to the list of people she liked. _(A/N: And by that I mean the actual, physical list, that she had begun writing before they started the new chapter.)_

**Entering her room, Kel shut the door. When she turned, a gasp escaped before she locked her lips.**

"What! What happened! George did you skip something?" Alanna exclaimed as she tried to peer over his shoulder.

George put an arm up to block her. "Calm down lass, I haven't gotten there yet."

**She surveyed the damage. The narrow bed was overturned. Mattress, sheets, and blankets were strewn everywhere. The drapes lay on the floor and the shutters hung open. Two chairs, a bookcase, a pair of night tables, and an oak clothespress were also upended. The desk must have been too heavy for such treatment, but its drawers had their contents tumbled out. Someone had used her practice glaive to slash and pull down the wall hangings. On the plaster wall she saw written: **_**No Girls! Go Home! You Won't Last!**_

Everyone gasped and Wyldon frowned. "I never heard of this, why was I not informed."

**Kel took deep breaths until the storm of hurt and anger that filled her was under control. Once that was done, she began to clean up. The first thing she checked was the small wooden box containing her collection of Yamani porcelain lucky cats. She had a dozen or so, each a different size and color, each sitting with one paw upraised. The box itself was dented on one corner, but its contents were safe. Her mother had packed each cat in a handkerchief to keep it from breaking.**

**That's something, at least, Kel thought. But what about next time? Maybe she ought to ship them home.**

"That might not be a bad idea," Jonathan observed.

**As she gathered up her clothes, she heard a knock. She opened her door a crack. It was Salma. The minute the woman saw her face she knew something was wrong. "Open," she commanded.**

"Now that's impressive, almost no one can see through her mask," Raoul said.

**Kel let her in and shut the door.**

"**You were warned this kind of thing might happen?" Salma asked finally.**

**Kel nodded. "I'm cleaning up."**

"**I told you, it's your job to perform a warrior's tasks. **_**We**_** do this kind of work," Salma replied. "Leave this to me. By the time you come back from supper it will be as good as new. Are you going to change clothes?"**

**Kel nodded.**

"**Why don't you do that? It's nearly time for you to wait outside. I'll need your key once you're done in here."**

Alanna looked at Jonathan. "I think you should give her a raise," she grinned.

**Kel scooped up the things she needed and walked into the next room. Small and bare, it served as a dressing room and bathroom. The privy was behind a door set in the wall. There was little in here to destroy, but the mirror and the privy seat were soaped.**

**Kel shut the door. Before she had seen her room, she had planned to wear tunic and breeches as she had for the journey. She'd thought that if she was to train as a boy, she ought to dress like one. They were also more comfortable. **

"Are they?" Gary wondered aloud.

"Of course they are," Alanna retorted.

"Well I didn't know, it's not like I wear dresses," Gary responded.

Alanna and the women looked at him thoughtfully. Thirty minutes later saw Gary sitting in a fluffy pink dress, the ladies all looking out of breath and smug, and the men looking disturbed and uncomfortable.

"Now maybe you'll stop making dumb comments," Alanna huffed, still a little out of breath with trying to wrestle him into the dress.

Gary bit his lip and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Jonathan eyed Gary uneasily. "Is that really necessary?" he wanted to know.

"I suggest you stay out of it dear unless you want to be next," Thayet smiled, patting his arm. Jonathan shuddered and decided to listen to his wife on this one. Especially with the gleam that appeared in Alanna's eye when Thayet said that.

**Now she felt differently. She was a girl; she had nothing to be ashamed of, and they had better learn **_**that **_**first thing. The best way to remind them was to dress at least part of the time as a girl.**

Raoul was about to say something, then remembering the screams and crashes coming from the bedroom when Gary had been dragged in there, decided against it.

**Stripping off her travel-stained clothes, she pulled on a yellow linen shift and topped it with her second-best dress, a fawn-brown cotton that looked well against the yellow. She removed her boots and put on white stockings and brown leather slippers.**

**Cleaning the mirror, she looked at herself. The gown was creased from being packed, but that could not be helped. She still had a black eye. There was nothing she could do with her mouse-brown hair: she'd had it cropped to her earlobes before she'd left home. Next trip to market, maybe I'll get some ribbons, she thought grimly, running a comb through her hair. Some nice bright ribbons.**

Raoul shook his head. Not a good idea, he thought.

**She grinned at her own folly. Hadn't she learned by now that the first thing a boy grabbed in a fight was hair? She'd lose chunks of it or get half choked if she wore ornaments and ribbons. **

Good girl, Raoul cheered in his head.

**Overhead a bell clanged three times. She winced: the sound was **_**loud**_**.**

"I _really_ hated that bell," Alanna muttered.

"**Time," Salma called.**

**If she thought anything of the change in Kel's appearance, she kept it to herself. Instead she pointed to yet another piece of writing: **_**Girls Can't Fight!**_** Salma's mouth twisted wryly. "What do they think their mothers do when the lords are at war and a raiding party strikes? Stay in their solars and tat lace?"**

Buri underlined Salma's name on her list.

**That made Kel smile. "My aunt lit barrels of lard and had them catapulted onto Scanran ships this summer."**

Buri added Kel's aunt to her list.

"**As would any delicately reared noblewoman." Salma opened the door. Once they had walked into the hall, she took the key from Kel and went about her business, nodding to the boys as they emerged from their rooms.**

**Kel stood in front of her door and clasped her hands so no one could see they shook. Suddenly she wanted to turn tail and run until she reached home.**

"Don't do that!" Buri cried.

"Everything will work out," Wyldon murmured.

**Wyldon was coming down the hall. Boys joined him as he passed, talking quietly. One of them was a boy with white-blond hair and blue eyes, set in a face as rosy-cheeked as a girl's. Kel, seeing the crispness around his mouth, guessed that anybody silly enough to mistake that one for a girl would be quickly taught his mistake. A big, cheerful-looking red-headed boy walked on Wyldon's left, joking with a very tall, lanky youth.**

"Who're they?" Alanna demanded.

**A step behind the blond page and Wyldon came a tall boy who walked with a lion's arrogance. He was brown-skinned and black-eyed, his nose proudly arched. A Bazhir tribesman from the southern desert, Kel guessed. She noticed several other Bazhir among the pages, but none looked as kingly as this one.**

"And who's he?" she wanted to know, making a grab for the book.

George held it out of her reach. "If ye want to know so badly, sit down and we can find out." Alanna huffed impatiently and sat back.

**When the training master halted, there were only five people left in front of doors on both sides of him: four boys and Kel. Her next-door neighbor, a brown-haired boy liberally sprinkled with freckles, bowed to Wyldon. Kel and the others did the same; then Kel wondered if she ought to have curtsied. She let it go. To do so now, after bowing, would just make her look silly.**

Myles chuckled at the thought.

**Wyldon looked at each of them in turn, his eyes resting the longest on Kel. "Don't think you'll have an easy time this year. You will work hard. You'll work when you're tired, when you're ill, and when you think you can't possibly work anymore. You have one more day to laze. Your sponsor will show you around the palace and collect those things which the crown supplies to you. The day after that, we begin."**

"**You." He pointed to a boy with the reddest straightest hair Kel had ever seen. "Your name and the holding of your family."**

**The boy stammered, "Merric, sir – my lord. Merric of Hollyrose." He had pale blue eyes and a long, broad nose; his skin had only the barest summer tan.**

George turned to Alanna, "There, now you know somebody." Alanna grumbled and crossed her arms.

**The training master looked at the pages around him. "Which of you older pages will sponsor Merric and teach him our ways?"**

"**Please, Lord Wyldon?" Kel wasn't able to see the owner of the voice in the knot of boys who stood at Wyldon's back. "We're kinsmen, Merric and I."**

"**And kinsmen should stick together. Well said, Faleron of King's Reach." A handsome, dark-haired boy came to stand with Merric, smiling at the redhead. **

"Oh, maybe she'll get a crush on this one," Thayet said excitedly.

Wyldon looked over at her. "Why does she need to get a crush on anybody?"

"It will add a little romance to the story."

"Wyldon thought about that for a minute then he asked, "Didn't you say she was too young for the sort of thing?"

Thayet glared. "Shut up, Wyldon."

Wyldon opened his mouth to retort but snapped it shut when he saw Gary motioning franticly at him. He wasn't sure if these females would attempt to put him in a dress, but he was very sure that he didn't want to find out.

**Wyldon pointed to the freckled lad, Esmond of Nicoline, who was taken into the charge of Cleon of Kennan, the big redhead. Blond, impish Quinden of Marti's Hill was sponsored by the regal-looking Bazhir, Zahir ibn Alhaz. **

"Hey, that's my squire," Jonathan exclaimed.

**The next pairing was the most notable; Crown Prince Roald, the twelve-year-old heir to the throne, chose to show Seaver of Tasride around. Seaver, whose dark complexion and coal-black eyes and hair suggested Bazhir ancestors, stared at Roald nervously, but relaxed when the prince rested a gently hand on his shoulder.**

"And that's my son," Jonathan said proudly.

**Only Kel remained. Wyldon demanded, "Your name and your fief?"**

**She gulped. "Keladry of Mindelan."**

"**Who will sponsor her?" asked Wyldon.**

**The handsome Zahir looked at her and sniffed. "Girls have no business in the affairs of men. This one should go home." He glared at Kel, who met his eyes calmly.**

The ladies and Raoul growled.

**Lord Wyldon shook his head. "We are not among the Bazhir tribes, Zahir ibn Alhaz. Moreover, I requested a sponsor, not an opinion." He looked at the other boys. "Will no one offer?" he asked. "No beginner may go unsponsored."**

"**Look at her," Kel heard a boy murmur. "She stands there like – like a **_**lump**_**."**

"Well that's not very nice," Daine said, feeling sorry for Kel.

**The blond youth at Wyldon's side raised a hand. "May I, my lord?" he asked.**

**Lord Wyldon stared at him. "You, Joren of Stone Mountain?" **

"Uh oh," Buri said exchanged glances with Raoul.

**The youth bowed. "I would be pleased to teach the girl all she needs to know of life in the pages' wing."**

**Kel eyed him, suspicious. From the way a few older pages giggled, she suspected Joren might plan to chase her away, not show her around. She looked at the training master, expecting him to agree with the blond page.**

"I'm not _that_ cruel," Wyldon argued.

**Instead Lord Wyldon frowned. "I had hoped for another sponsor," he commented stiffly. "You should employ your spare hours in the improvement of your classwork and your riding skills."**

"See, I came up with a perfectly believable excuse," Wyldon pointed out.

"**I thought Joren hated –" someone whispered.**

"**Shut up!" another boy hissed.**

**Kel looked at the flagstones under her feet. Now she was fighting to hide her embarrassment, but she knew she was failing. Any Yamani would see her shame on her features. She clasped her hands before her and schooled her features to smoothness. I'm a rock, she thought. I am stone.**

"**I believe I can perfect my studies and sponsor the girl," Joren said respectfully. "And since I am the only volunteer –"**

"**I suppose I'm being rash and peculiar, **_**again,**_**" someone remarked in a drawling voice, "but if it means helping my friend Joren improve his studies, well, I'll just have to sacrifice myself. There's nothing I won't do to further the cause of book learning among my peers."**

Wyldon groaned and put his head in his hands. Alanna grinned. "I know who that is," she remarked.

"The bane of my time as training master." Wyldon replied into his hands.

**Everyone turned toward the speaker, who stood at the back of the group. Seeing him clearly, Kel thought that he was too old to be a page. He was tall, fair-skinned, and lean, with emerald eyes and light brown hair that swept back from a widow's peak.**

**Lord Wyldon absently rubbed the arm he kept tucked in a sling. "You volunteer, Nealan of Queenscove?"**

**The youth bowed jerkily. "That I do, your worship, sir." There was the barest hint of a taunt in Nealan's educated voice.**

Myles smiled. He remembered well the trouble young Nealan used to cause for Wyldon.

"**A sponsor should be a page in his second year at least," Wyldon informed Nealan. "And you will mind your tongue."**

"**I know I only joined this little band in April, your lordship," the youth Nealan remarked cheerily, "but I have lived at court almost all of my fifteen years. I know the palace and its ways. And unlike Joren, I need not worry about my academics."**

**Kel stared at the youth. Had he always been mad, or did a few months under Wyldon do this to him? She had just arrived, and **_**she**_** knew better than to bait the training master.**

Everyone began chuckling.

**Wyldon's eyebrows snapped together. "You have been told to mind your manners, Page Nealan. I will have an apology for you insolence."**

**Nealan bowed deeply. "An apology for general insolence, you lordship, or some particular offense?"**

"Smart mouthed, little . . . " Wyldon muttered.

"**One week scrubbing pots," ordered Lord Wyldon. "Be silent."**

**Nealan threw out an arm like a player making a dramatic statement. "How can I be silent and yet apologize?"**

"Good point," Numair laughed, he liked this kid.

"_**Two**_** weeks." Keladry was forgotten as Wyldon concentrated on the green-eyed youth. "The first duty for anyone in service to the crown is obedience."**

"**And I am a terrible obeyer," retorted Nealan. "All these inconvenient arguments spring to my mind, and I just have to make them."**

The chuckling was growing into full blown laughter as the argument between training master and page continued.

"**Three," Wyldon said tightly**

"**Neal, shut it!" someone whispered.**

"**I could learn – " Kel squeaked. No one heard. She cleared her throat and repeated, "I can learn it on my own."**

Jonathan snorted. "Good luck."

**The boys turned to stare. Wyldon glance at her. "What did you say?"**

"**I'll find my way on my own," Kel repeated. "Nobody has to show me. I'll probably learn better, poking around." She knew that wasn't the case – her father had once referred to the palace as a "miserable rat-warren" – but she couldn't let this mad boy get himself deeper into trouble on her account.**

Everyone laughed again at her description of the palace and the boy Neal. "Well I suppose somebody should try and keep him out of trouble," Daine grinned.

**Nealan stared at her, winged brows raised.**

"**When I require your opinion," began Wyldon, his dark eyes snapping.**

"**It's no trouble," Nealan interrupted. "None at all, Demoiselle Keladry. My lord, I apologize for my wicked tongue and my dreadful manners. I shall do my best not to encourage her to follow my example."**

Buri wiped her eyes that had teared up with laughter and added Neal to her list.

**Wyldon, about to speak, seemed to think better of what he meant to say. He waited a moment, then said, "You are her sponsor, then. Now. Enough time has been wasted on foolishness. Supper."**

Wyldon sighed and rubbed his forehead. Just remembering that argument with Neal had given him a headache.

**He strode off, pages following like ducklings in their mother's wake. When the hall cleared, only Nealan and Keladry were left.**

**Nealan stared at the girl, his slanting eyes taking her in. Seeing him up close at last, Kel noticed that he had a willful face, with high cheekbones and arched brows. "Believe me, you wouldn't have liked Joren as a sponsor," Nealan informed her. "He'd drive you out in a week. With me at least you might last a while, even if I am at the bottom of Lord Wyldon's list. Come on." He strode off.**

**Kel stayed where she was. Halfway down the hall, Nealan realized she was not behind him. When he turned and saw her still in front of her room, he sighed gustily, and beckoned. Kel remained where she was.**

"Why won't she go with him?" Gary wondered.

"Shut up, Gary, and maybe we can find out," George glared. Gary sighed and went back to fiddling with his skirt. It was a very pretty color . . .

**Finally he stomped back to her. "What part of 'come on' was unclear, page?"**

"**Why do you care if I last a week or longer?" she demanded. "Queenscove is a ducal house. Mindelan's just a barony, and a new one at that. Nobody cares about Mindelan. We aren't related, and our fathers aren't friends. So who am I to you?"**

"An excuse to drive me crazy," Wyldon offered.

**Nealan stared at her. "Direct little thing, aren't you?"**

Raoul chuckled. Yes she is, he thought

**Kel crossed her arms over her chest and waited. The talkative boy didn't seem to have much patience. He would wear out before she did in a waiting contest.**

**Nealan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Look – you heard me say I've lived at court almost all my life, right?"**

**Kel nodded.**

"**Well, think about that. I've lived at court and my father's the chief of the realm's healers. I've spent time with the queen and quite a few of the Queen's Riders and the King's Champion. I've watched Lady Alanna fight for the crown. I saw her majesty and some of her ladies fight in the Immortals War. I know women can be warriors. If that's the life you want, then you ought to have the same chance to get it as anyone else who's here." He stopped, then shook his head with a rueful smile. "I keep forgetting I'm not in a university debate. Sorry about the speech. Can we go eat now?"**

"It was a good speech though," Numair pointed out. Daine shushed him.

**Kel nodded again. This time, when he strode off down the hall, she trotted to keep up with him.**

**When they passed through an intersection of halls, Nealan pointed. "Note that stairwell. Don't let anyone tell you it's a shortcut to the mess or the classrooms. It heads straight down and ends on the lower levels, underground."**

"**Yessir."**

"**Don't call me sir."**

"**Yessir."**

Raoul laughed.

**Nealan halted. "Was that meant to be funny?"**

"**Nossir," Kel replied, happy to stop and catch her breath. Nealan walked as he spoke, briskly.**

**Nealan threw up his hands and resumed his course. **

"I can just picture him doing that," Alanna chuckled.

**Finally they entered a room filled with noise. To Kel it seemed as if every boy in the world was here, yelling and jostling around rows of long tables and benches. She came to a halt, but Nealan beckoned her to follow. He led her to stacks of trays, plates, napkins, and cutlery, grabbing what he needed. Copying him, Kel soon had a bowl of soup thick with leeks and barley, big slices of ham, a crusty roll still hot from the over, and saffron rice studded with raisins and almonds. She had noticed pitchers of liquids, bowls of fruit, honey pots, and platters of cheese were already on the tables.**

"Okay, now I'm hungry," Gary announced.

"Shut up, Gary," Raoul said. "There's plenty of snacks here."

"But I want what she's having," Gary complained.

"Stop whining or we'll bring out the face paint," Alanna threatened. Gary shut up.

**As they stopped, looking for a place to sit, the racket faded. Eyes turned their way. Within seconds she could her the whispers. "Look." "The Girl." "It's **_**her**_**." One clear voice exclaimed, "Who cares? She won't last."**

**Kel bit her lip and stared at her tray. Stone, she thought in Yamani. I am stone.**

**Nealan gave no sign of hearing, but marched toward seats at the end of one table. As they sat across from one another, the boys closest to them moved. Two seats beside Nealan were left empty, and three next to Kel.**

"Why do boys have to be so mean," Thayet grumbled.

"**This is nice," Nealan remarked cheerfully. He put his food on the table before him and shoved his tray into the gap between him and the next boy. "Usually it's impossible to get a bit of elbow room here."**

"Sweet of him to try and make her feel better," Daine remarked.

**Someone rapped on a table. Lord Wyldon stood alone at a lectern in front of the room. The boys and Kel got to their feet as Wyldon raised his hands. "To Mithros, god of warriors and of truth, and to the Great Mother Goddess, we give thanks for their bounty," he said.**

"**We give thanks and praise," responded his audience.**

"**We ask the guidance of Mithros in these uncertain times, when change threatens all that is time-honored and true. May the god's light show us a path back to the virtues of our fathers and an end to uncertain times. We ask this of Mithros, god of the sun."**

"**So mote it be," intoned the pages.**

Alanna glared at Wyldon. "That was uncalled for."

Wyldon sighed, and here he thought he was starting to get on her good side.

**Wyldon lowered his hands and the boys dropped into their seats.**

**Kel, frowning, was less quick to sit. Had Lord Wyldon been talking about her? "Don't let his prayers bother you," Nealan told her, using his belt knife to cut his meat. "My father says he's done nothing but whine about changes in Tortall since the king and queen were married. Eat. It's getting cold."**

"That's not true," Wyldon argued.

"Yes it is," Thayet retorted, "admit it."

**Kel took a few bites. After a minute she asked, "Nealan?"**

**He put down his fork. "It's Neal. My least favorite aunt calls me Nealan."**

"**How did his lordship get those scars?" she inquired. "And why is his arm in a sling?"**

"She doesn't know?" Thayet murmured surprised.

**Neal raised his brows. "Didn't you know?"**

**If I knew, I wouldn't ask, Kel thought irritably, but she kept her face blank.**

Thayet blushed.

**Neal glanced at her, shook his head, and continued, "In the war, a party of centaurs, and hurroks –"**

"**Hur – what?" asked Kel, interrupting him.**

"**Hurroks. Winged horses, claws, fangs, very nasty. They attack the royal nursery. The Stump –"**

"**The what?" Kel asked, interrupting again. She felt as if he were speaking a language she only half understood.**

**Neal sighed. There was a wicked gleam in his green eyes. "I call him the Stump, because he's so stiff."**

Everyone burst out laughing again at that. "I suspected he was behind that nickname," Wyldon smiled.

**He might be right, but he wasn't very respectful, thought Kel. She wouldn't say so, however. She wasn't exactly sure, but probably it would be just as disrespectful to scold her sponsor, particularly one who was five years older than she was.**

"**Anyway, Lord Wyldon fought off the hurroks and centaurs all by himself. He saved Prince Liam, Prince Jasson, and Princess Lianne. In the fight, the hurroks raked him. My father managed to save the arm, but Wyldon's going to have pain from it all his life."**

"**He's a hero, then," breathed Kel, looking at Wyldon with new respect.**

Wyldon flushed.

"**Oh, he's as brave as brave can be," Neal reassured her. "That doesn't mean he isn't a stump." He fell silent and Kel concentrated on her supper. Abruptly Neal said, "You aren't what I expected."**

"**How so?" She cut up her meat.**

"**Oh, well, you're big for a girl. I have a ten-year-old sister who's a hand-width shorter. And you seem rather quiet. I guess I thought the girl who would follow in Lady Alanna's footsteps would be more like her."**

"You know, short and loud," Gary remarked cheerfully.

Alanna growled at him as everyone else laughed.

**Kel shrugged. "Will I get to meet the Lioness?" She tried not to show that she would do anything to meet her hero.**

**Neal ran his fork around the edge of his plate, not meeting Kel's eyes. "She isn't often at court. Either she's in the field, dealing with lawbreakers or immortals, or she's home with her family." A bell chimed. The pages rose to carry their empty trays to a long window at the back of the room, turning them over to the kitchen help. "Com on. Let's get rid of this stuff, and I'll start showing you around."**

**Salma found them as they were leaving the mess hall. She drew Kel aside and gave her two keys. One was brass, the other iron. "I'm the only one with copies of these," Salma told her quietly. "Even the cleaning staff will need me to let them in. Both keys are special. To open your door, put the brass one in the lock, turn it left, and whisper your name. When you leave, turn the key left again. The iron key is for the bottom set of shutters. It works the same as the door key. Lock the shutters every time you leave or the boys will break in that way. Leave the small upper shutters open for ventilation. Only a monkey could climb through those. Don't worry if any of the boys can pick locks. Anyone who tries will be sprayed in skunk-stink. That should make them reconsider."**

"How she get that set up so fast?" Daine gasped. Everyone shrugged.

**Kel smiled. "Thank you Salma."**

**The woman nodded to her and Neal, and left them.**

**Neal walked over to Kel. "If they can't wreck your room, they'll find other things to do," he murmured. When Kel raised her eyebrows at him, he explained, I learned to read lips. The masters at the university were always whispering about something."**

Wyldon sighed. "Why and I not surprised."

**Kel tucked the keys into her belt-purse. "I'll deal with the other things as they come," she said firmly. "Now where to?"**

"**I bet you'd enjoy the portrait gallery. If you're showing visitors around, it's one of the places they like to go."**

**After leading Kel past a bewildering assortment of salons, libraries, and official chambers, Neal showed her the gallery. He seemed to know a story about every person whose portrait was displayed there. Kel was fascinated by his knowledge of Tortall's monarchs and their families; he made it sound as if he'd known them all personally, even the most ancient. She stared the longest at the faces of King Jonathan and Queen Thayet. She could see why the queen was called the most beautiful woman in Tortall, but even in a painting there was more to her than looks. The girl saw humor at the back of those level hazel eyes and determination in the strong nose and perfectly shaped mouth.**

Thayet blushed, embarrassed.

"**She's splendid," Kel breathed.**

"**She is, but don't say that around the Stump," advised Neal. "He thinks she's ruined the country, with her K'miri notion that women can fight and her opening schools so everyone can learn their letters. Anything new gives my lord of Cavall a nosebleed."**

Wyldon sighed and rolled his eyes.

"**Still determined to go to war with the training master, Nealan?" inquired a soft, whispery voice behind Kel.**

**She whirled, startled, and found she was staring at an expanse of pearl-gray material, as nubbly as if it were a mass of tiny beads melted together. She stumbled back one step and then another. The pearls-gray expanse turned dark gray at the edges. Looking down, Kel saw long, slender legs ending in lengthy digits, each tipped with a silver claw.**

**She backed up yet another step and tilted her head most of the way back. The creature was fully seven feet tall, not counting the long tail it used to balance itself, and it was viewing her with fascination. Its large gray slit-pupiled eyes regarded her over a short, lipless muzzle.**

Kitten trilled.

**Kel's jaw dropped.**

"**You're staring, Mindelan," Neal said dryly.**

"**As am I," the creature remarked in that ghostly voice. "Will you introduce us?"**

"**Tkaa, this is Keladry of Mindelan," said Neal. "Kel, Tkaa is a basilisk. He's one of our instructors in the ways of the immortals."**

**Kel had seen the immortals other than the spidren on the riverbank, but she had never been this close to one. And it – he? – was to be one of her teachers?**

"**We basilisks are travelers and gossips," Tkaa remarked, as if he had read her mind. "I earn my keep here by educating those who desire a more precise knowledge of those immortals who have chosen to settle in the human realms."**

"And he does a very fine job of it," Daine smiled as Kitten chirped in agreement.

"**Yes, sir," Kel said, breathless. She started to curtsy, remembered that a page bowed, and tried to do both. Neal braced her before she could topple over. Once she had regained her balance, the red-faced Kel bowed properly.**

Daine giggled. "She's cute."

"**I am pleased to meet you, Keladry of Mindelan," the basilisk told her as if he hadn't noticed her clumsiness. "I shall see you both the day after tomorrow." With a nod to Kel and Neal, he walked out of the gallery, tail daintily raised. **

**Neal sighed. "We'd better get back to our rooms. Tomorrow's a busy day." He led her back to her room, pointing out his own as they passed it. "We'll meet in the mess hall in the morning," he told her.**

**Kel used the key as Salma had directed, and entered her room. Everything was in place, her bed freshly made up, curtains and draperies rehung. A faint scent of paint still drifted from the walls. "Gods of fire and ice, bless my new home," she whispered in Yamani. "Keep my will burning as hot as the heart of the volcano, and as hard and implacable as a glacier."**

**A wave of homesickness suddenly caught her. She wished she could hear her mother's low, soothing voice or listen to her father read from one of his books.**

"You'll get on just fine," Alanna whispered, smiling.

**Emotion is weakness, Kel told herself, quoting her Yamani teachers. I must be as serene as a lake on a calm day. It was hard to control her feelings when so much was at stake and she was so far from home. **

**But control her feelings she would. If anyone here thought to run her off, they would find she was tougher than expected. She was here to stay.**

"That's my girl," Raoul said proudly.

**To prove it, she carefully unpacked each porcelain lucky cat and set it on her mantelpiece. **

"Not sending them home then," Jon remarked quietly with a smile on his lips.

**Only when she had placed each of them just so did she scrub her face and put on her nightgown.**

**Climbing into bed, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She imagined a lake, its surface as smooth as glass. This is my heart, she thought. This is what I will strive to be.**

George looked up. "She's a determined lass," he said softly.

"Yes she is," Wyldon agreed, then looked down in surprise. How did the book end up in his hands, he wondered. I certainly don't remembering grabbing it.

"Well, my lord, are ye gonna continue?" George asked him. He raised a brow at George who only smirked in return.

"Wait, can I change out of this dress yet?" Gary asked. "It _is_ really uncomfortable."

Thayet looked at Alanna and smirked, "Well, do you think we should let him?"

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_A/N: What do you all think? Should I let Gary change or should I make him suffer a bit more?_


	4. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

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_A/N: O_O Wow! You guys are the greatest! With reviews like yours, how could I even consider stopping. I've also been getting a lot of messages in my e-mail about being added to Story Alert and Favorite Stories list. I can honestly say I never expected anything like that so thank you all so much! Also a special thanks to everybody who left specific details of things you liked in the story, it lets me know what works and what doesn't. _

_To __LadyBluePheonix__, I only know of two other stories that did this. One was for Song of the Lioness, but it isn't there anymore. The other is in Protector of the Small and it's called "Tortall reads the POTS", by Dom-Loves-Kel. I might not have done mine if I had known about it. I didn't find that story until after I had already finished the first chapter of mine. However, I'm glad I did this story anyway. It's been so much fun! _

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_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

_George looked up. "She's a determined lass," he said softly._

"_Yes she is," Wyldon agreed, then looked down in surprise. How did the book end up in his hands, he wondered. I certainly don't remembering grabbing it._

"_Well, my lord, are ye gonna continue?" George asked him. He raised a brow at George who only smirked in return._

"_Wait, can I change out of this dress yet?" Gary asked. "It is really uncomfortable."_

_Thayet looked at Alanna and smirked, "Well, do you think we should let him?"_

* * *

Alanna sighed and looked at Gary skeptically. "I don't know..." she said tilting her head to the side. Gary gave her his very best puppy eyes which caused her to burst out laughing. "Oh alright," she conceded. "I suppose he's learned his lesson. For now." She grinned as Gary whooped and made to dash into the bedroom, only to forget to hold up his skirts and fall flat on his face. The women laughed outright while the men attempted to cover their laughs for fear of meeting the same fate. Gary stood up red-faced and walked calmly into the bedroom, attempting to keep what was left of his pride.

Only when Gary was changed and back in his seat did Wyldon open up the book and begin once again.

**Chapter 3, The Practice Courts**

**The next morning Kel heard the chatter of birds. She crept over to her open window and peered outside. It was nearly dawn, with the barest touch of light coloring the sky. Before her was a small courtyard with a single bedraggled tree growing at its center. On it perched house sparrows, drab in their russet brown and tan feathers, the males with stern looking black collars. Several birds pecked at the circle of earth around the tree. Kel watched them as the pearly air brightened. Poor things, she thought, they're hungry.**

"Well it sure didn't take long for her to find some strays to take in now did it?" Raoul grinned.

Daine smiled. "It's refreshing to meet someone who treats animals as well as she does people."

**In her clothespress she had stowed the last of the fruit bread Mindelan's cook had given her for the journey south. Kel retrieved it and broke it into crumbs, then dumped it on the courtyard stones. She was watching the sparrows devour it when the first bell rang and someone rapped on her door. She opened it and said a cheerful good morning to the servant who stood there with a pitcher of hot water. **

"**Good is as good does, Page Keladry," he said, his long face glum. He placed his burden on her desk. "I'm Gower. I'm to look after you." **

"What's his problem?" Alanna frowned.

**He began to sweep out the hearth as Kel took the water into her dressing room.**

**A new fire was laid when she returned to the main room, her face washed and her teeth clean. "If you've anything special you require, soap or cloths or such, tell me," Gower said sorrowfully. "Within reason, of course."**

**Kel blinked at him. She'd never met anyone this gloomy. "Thank you, Gower," she replied, intimidated. "I don't need anything just yet."**

"**Very good, miss," he said, then shook his head. "I mean, Page Keladry."**

"I mean seriously," Alanna added. "Does he not like her or something?" Everyone else shrugged.

**She sighed with relief when he left, and hurried to dress.**

**Undiscouraged by Gower, she wished Neal a good morning when she found him in the mess hall. He looked at her through bleary eyes and mumbled, "There's nothing good about it." Kel shook her head and ate breakfast in silence. **

Daine giggled. "Now who does _that_ sound like?" she asked, poking Numair playfully.

Numair rubbed the spot she poked and looked down his long nose at her with mischievous eyes. "Oh I don't know," he hummed, "the Lioness?" He turned to Alanna. "You and your squire must have gotten along splendidly in the morning."

"Of course we did," Alanna smirked. "That was the quietest he was all day."

**The day flew by. It began underground, where the palace stores were kept. A tailor took Kel's measurements. Then his assistant dumped a load of garments into her arms. She got three sets of practice clothes, sturdy tan cotton and wool garments to be worn during the morning. She also received three changes of the pages' formal uniform – red shirt and hose, gold tunic – to be worn in the afternoon and at royal gatherings. Shoes to match her formal gear were added: her family had supplied boots for riding and combat practice. Neal took the cloaks and coats she was given for cold weather.**

**Once she had stowed her things, Neal took her for another tour. They spent the morning inside, visiting the classrooms, libraries, indoor practice courts, and supply rooms like the pages' armory on the first level underground. After lunch, Neal took her to the outdoor practice courts and stables; the gardens, where she might wait on guests; and last of all, the royal menagerie. That night she dreamed the hooting calls of the howler monkeys from the Copper Isles and the chittering of brightly colored finches.**

**The next day she woke not to the gaudy finches' calls or the songs of Yamani birds, but to the friendly gossip of the courtyard sparrows. In hopes of seeing them again, she'd swiped a couple of rolls from the mess hall. Now she tore the rolls up and put the scraps outside the window for the birds.**

"See what I mean," Raoul said. "She's taking in strays."

"Yes, we heard you the first time, Raoul," Thayet sighed.

**As she finished, the bell rang. Gower rapped on her door as he'd done the day before, bringing hot water. Once he had cleaned the hearth and gone, Kel got dressed and ran to the mess hall. Her first day as a page had begun.**

**After breakfast, the pages flocked to one of the practice yards. Kel would take her first steps on the path to knighthood in these wood-fenced bare-earth rectangles and their adjoining equipment sheds. I'll work hard, she promised herself. I'll show everyone what girls can do.**

Wyldon smiled, remembering how her first day had gone. You sure didn't waste any time, he thought.

**Two Shang warriors, masters of unarmed combat, awaited the pages in the first yard. One of them sat on the fence, looking them over with pale, intelligent eyes. Her short-cropped tight gray curls framed a face that was dainty but weathered. She was clothed in undyed breeches and a draped baggy jacket.**

"The Shang Wildcat," Alanna murmured, remembering the first time they had met, after Liam's death.

**The other Shang warrior stood at the center of the yard, his big hands braced on his hips. He was a tall Yamani, golden-skinned, with plump lips and a small nose. His black eyes were lively, particularly for a Yamani. His black hair was cropped short on the sides and longer on top. His shoulders were heavy under his undyed jacket. Both he and the woman wore soft, flexible cloth shoes.**

"**For those who are new," he said, no trace of accent in his clear, mellow voice, "I'm Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse. My colleague, who joined me this summer, is Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat."**

"**Don't go thinking you can bounce me all over the ground just because I look like somebody's grandmother," the woman said dryly. "Some grandchildren need more raising than others, and I supply it." She grinned, showing very white teeth. **

"I'm sure she does," George laughed.

**Kel saw the redheaded Merric swallow. She agreed: The Wildcat looked tough.**

Everyone chuckled.

"**You older lads, pair up and go through the first drill," ordered Hakuin. "Grandmother here will keep and eye on you. As for you new ones . . ." He beckoned them over to a corner of the yard. Once they stood before him, the man continued, "Your first and most important lesson is, learn how to fall. Slap the ground as you hit, and roll. Like this." He fell forward, using his arms to break his fall. The boys jumped; the sound and the puff of dust he raised made the fall appear more serious than it was.**

**The Horse got to his feet and held a hand out to blond Quinden. When the boy took it, he found himself soaring gently over Hakuin's hip. Only after he landed did the boy remember to slap the ground.**

"Ouch," Jonathan winced in sympathy.

"**You have to do that earlier, as you hit," said Hakuin gently, helping Quinden up. "Now," he beckoned to Kel and offered a hand.**

**She took it, meaning to let him throw her as he had Quinden, but the moment she felt his tug, six years of Yamani training took over. She turned, letting her back slide into the curve of his pulling arm as she gripped him with both hand and drew him over her right hip. He faltered, then steadied, and swept Kel's feet from under her. She released his arm, then tucked and rolled forward as she hit the ground. She surged back up again and turned to face him, setting herself for the next attack.**

"Wow," Daine breathed. George whistled, impressed that Kel almost threw a Shang warrior.

**He stood where she had left him, smiling wryly. Horrified, Kel laid her hands flat on her thighs and bowed. She expected a swat on the head or a bellow in her ear – Nariko, the emperor's training master, had had no patience with people who didn't complete a throw or counter a sweeping foot.**

Gary chuckled. "_That's_ what she was worried about?"

**When no one swatted or bellowed, she looked up through her bangs. Everyone was staring at her.**

**Kel looked down again, wishing she could disappear.**

"Why?" Daine wondered. "That was fair impressive."

"**See what happens when you get too comfortable, Hakuin?" drawled the Wildcat. "Someone hands you a surprise. If you'd been a hair slower, she'd've tossed you."**

"**Isn't it bad enough I am humbled, without you adding you copper to the sum, Eda?" the Horse inquired. "Look at me, youngster," he ordered. When Kel obeyed, she saw Hakuin's black eyes were dancing. "Someone has studied in the Yamani Islands."**

Buri added Hakuin to her list.

"**Yes, sir," she whispered.**

"**Your teacher was old Nariko, the emperor's training master, am I right? She always did like that throw. She drilled me in it so many times I wanted to toss her into a tree and leave her there."**

Everyone laughed.

**Kel nodded, hiding a smile.**

**Hakuin looked at the older pages. "I believe you were practicing the first drill for the Wildcat?" he asked mildly. Instantly there was a flurry of activity, patterns of kicks, throws, and punches. **

Everyone laughed again.

**Hakuin turned back to Kel. "Come show the other new ones how to fall. While they practice, we can see what else you know."**

"**Just what they taught the court ladies," Kel said. "Mostly counters to being grabbed or struck."**

"They teach _all_ the court ladies that?" Thayet asked. "Why don't we do that?"

"**You were with the embassy?" he asked.**

"**That explains everything." To the other new pages he said, "Watch how Keladry falls."**

**They all stared at her with a combination of confusion and dislike. It occurred to her that she had done the very thing her brother warned her against. **

"Oops," Buri said.

**The other pages thought she was showing off. She couldn't help that now. The damage was done. She would just have to make sure that she didn't repeat her mistake.**

"Yeah, oops," Daine added.

**With a sigh, she toppled forward, as she had so often in the islands, and smacked the ground.**

**When the next bell of the morning rang, they moved to another practice yard. A short black man in the maroon and beige uniform of the palace guard waited for them beside a barrel filled with long wooden staffs. Each of the pages selected one as he passed by.**

"**I am Sergeant Obafem Ezeko," announced the uniformed black man in unaccented Common. "Formerly weapons instructor to the Imperial Guard of Carthak, now serving the crown of Tortall. Lord Wyldon and I will instruct you in the use of various weapons. Pair up. You new ones at this end of the line. Cleon of Kennan and Vinson of Genlith, come up here to demonstrate."**

Wyldon frowned, remembering Vinson. He never did like him.

**Cleon was the big, redheaded boy who was Esmond of Nicoline's sponsor. He went to stand beside the sergeant, spinning his staff idly in his hands. Vinson faced off with him. He was a bony, tall youth. Kel had seen him eating with the handsome Joren at supper and breakfast.**

"**Show them a high block," instructed the sergeant. "Vinson defending, Cleon striking."**

**Cleon pulled his staff back and swung it first up, then down. The blow he'd aimed would have struck Vinson on the head or collarbone if it had landed. Instead Vinson gripped his staff, his hands spread wide apart, and raised the weapon a few inches over his head. Cleon's staff met his with a loud clack.**

"**Observe the strike," the sergeant told them. "Again, Cleon." The big youth repeated the strike, moving slowly. Kel nodded, watching the way his hands shifted on the smooth wood as he lowered it to tap Vinson's skull. From the way Vinson scowled at the bigger youth, Cleon's tap was a little harder than necessary.**

Thayet rolled her eyes. "Boys," she muttered. Daine giggled.

"**Your turn," barked Ezeko. He watched as the assembled pages did the strike. The newest boys were clumsy, although they should have had staff practice from their family men-at-arms. Kel was comfortable with the move. The only difference between this and the strike of a Yamani glaive, the weapon she know best, was that she had no razor-sharp eighteen inches of steel at the end of her staff.**

"Well that should help," Jon mused.

"**Repeat the high block, Vinson," ordered the sergeant. Everyone watched as Vinson moved his hands apart on the staff and thrust it hard into the air, stopping just three inches over his head. The sergeant made everyone do the same movement. He then had Cleon and Vinson demonstrate the middle strike and block, which centered on the chest and belly, and the low combination, to attack and defend the legs. Each time he made the pages try the moves.**

**Once they had practiced each movement, Ezeko had them stand in two lines. The newest pages were paired together. Neal, who was still new despite having been there during spring and early summer, was partnered with Seaver of Tasride, the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy who looked as if he had a Bazhir ancestor. Kel was paired with redheaded Merric of Hollyrose. He was short, compact, and intent on their exercise. Kel licked her lips and settled the weapon in her hands.**

"**Left line strikes; right line blocks," the sergeant told them. He walked along the double line of pages, checking everyone's hold on the staffs. After he'd changed some boys' grips and nodded approval for others, he stepped back. "To my count," he bellowed. "High! Middle! Low!" Staffs clacked as the exercise began and wood met wood. "High! Middle! Low!" **

**Kel struck carefully. Proving herself tough on a smaller opponent wasn't right, and Merric looked nervous. The lightness of the staff bothered her. A Yamani glaive was far heavier. She knew that if she forgot she held a lighter pole, she would hit too hard.**

"Ok, maybe not," Jon remarked. "I never thought about it that way."

"**Faster! Swing 'em!" cried the sergeant. "I want to her wood clack! You don't master the staff, you'll never mater the sword. High! Middle! Low!" Over and over he chanted, increasing the speed. Kel bit her lip, locking her attention on the weapon.**

"**Ow!" someone cried as wood struck flesh. A few moments later there was another yelp.**

Daine winced in sympathy.

"**Keep going!" yelled Ezeko. "If your fingers hadn't been in the way, they wouldn't have gotten hit. Move 'em apart! The rest of you don't need me to count, do you? High, middle, low! I want to hear those staffs beat as one, understand me?"**

"He's tough," remarked Alanna.

**They had been at it long enough to begin to sweat when Lord Wyldon came into the yard. He and Ezeko walked up and down the two lines of pages. Wyldon changed Prince Roald's footing. Ezeko corrected Esmond of Nicoline's grip. Wyldon thrust Neal's high block higher. They reviewed and changed each boy's work until they got to Kel and Merric. Rather than speak to them or change the way they exchanged blocks and strikes, both men turned and went back up the line, inspecting and correcting the other boys a second time. **

"You what?" Alanna yelled outraged. "You wouldn't even look at her work. How is that being fair? And what about the boy with her? Merry or something . . ."

"Merric," George supplied.

"What he said," she said pointing at George. "Just cause he's practicing with her, you won't check his work either?"

"That's cold," Daine glared. Thayet and Buri were glaring as well.

Wyldon sighed. "I may have allowed my personal feelings at the time to cloud my judgment. It's not something I'm proud of."

They all continued to glare at him. Wyldon sighed and shook his head.

**Kel watched them go; Merric banged her fingers as a result. When she looked at him, he glared at her.**

"Hey," Daine protested. "It's not her fault!"

**It wasn't **_**my**_** fault they ignored us, she wanted to protest. **

Daine nodded. "That's what I said."

**She didn't. Warriors didn't make excuses.**

"**Switch places!" cried Ezeko when he reached the far end of the line of pages. They all stopped and repositioned themselves. Ezeko began the chant again. "High! Middle! Low!"**

**Merric seemed glad to be the one to hit. His blows fell harder and faster than the count, forcing Kel to respond in kind. **

Daine huffed in annoyance.

**Their rhythm fell out of time with their classmates'. Kel knew the men saw it, but they continued to focus their attention on the other pages. **

"Stupid, narrow-minded, insufferable…" Alanna muttered angrily.

**She kept up with Merric, blocking his strikes easily. She'd attracted enough attention for one morning.**

"**Enough," said Lord Wyldon at last.**

"**Next," the sergeant informed them, "you will use strikes and blocks in combination This time, strike your partner, then block his return strike."**

**Change partners," added Wyldon. "Older pages, pair with the new ones, and see if you can better their speed. Come on, switch pairs!"**

"I'll bet it's just so he can finally look at Merric's work," Thayet accused. Wisely, Wyldon chose not to comment.

**The boys looked around, trying to get to the partners they wanted before someone else did. Unsure of what to do, Kel remained where she was. When everyone formed into two lines once again, she was facing the beautiful Joren. **

"Uh oh," Raoul said. "This sounds like trouble." Wyldon nodded, remembering quite clearly what had happened next.

**Seeing that Kel stared at him, Joren smiled.**

**Kel hid her confusion. The day before, Neal had told her that Joren thought girls did not belong there. Now Joren smiled at her as if she were his friend. Does he want to make amends? She wondered.**

"She's always trying to see the good in people," Raoul sighed.

Jon frowned. "Surely the boy wouldn't start trouble with the instructors around," he argued.

Myles shook his head. "You don't know Joren," he remarked quietly. "That boy thought entirely to high of himself."

"**Get to it," Ezeko ordered. "Right line starts with a high strike. Left line does a high block, then a high strike. Right line, high block, then high strike. Older lads, go slow with the new ones. Strike! Block! Strike! Block! Nealan, stop flinching – if you get hit, you get hit." **

Alanna grinned. "Oh, you'll get over that my dear squire of mine."

"**Strike! Block! Strike! Block!" He kept them at that for a few moments. Joren politely tapped his staff on Kel's as she blocked him; Kel then returned the hit and was blocked by Joren. They continued the rhythm easily.**

"He doesn't _seem_ like he's out to start trouble," Daine observed.

"Just wait for it," Wyldon stated dryly.

"**Switch to middle strike, middle block on my mark," Wyldon ordered. "Ready…middle strike! Middle block! Strike – King's Reach, stand still! You don't get dancing lessons till later."**

Buri laughed.

**Ezeko picked up the count. After a while they switched to putting low strikes against low blocks.**

**Kel relaxed. Joren was a good partner, meeting her with just the right amount of force. They traded blows and blocks easily, which gave Kel time to study him. Joren had to be the prettiest boy she'd ever seen. For all that he was older, a third-year page, he was only an inch taller, his gorgeous blue eyes nearly level with hers. He'd combed back his long, white-blond hair and secured it in a horsetail for the morning's work. If he were a player, Kel thought, they'd have him do the young god Balcus Starsworn all the time.**

"Don't fall for _him!_" Alanna objected. "He's bad news."

**Suddenly Joren's staff shifted under hers, sliding out of position for a block. He drove the lower end of his weapon under her guard, aiming for her ribs. Kel foiled him by stepping out of line. **

"That's a cheap shot," Numair frowned.

"**Back in line, probationer," barked Wyldon.**

The girls all glared at Wyldon. Wyldon ignored them, he already knew he was going to be in trouble with them all over what was about to happen.

**The exercise changed again, this time to a high strike against a high block, then a middle strike and middle block, followed by a low strike and low block. The speed picked up as well. More and more pages, not all first-years, began to make mistakes.**

**Ezeko stood by her and Joren, yelling out the count. Kel took up the rhythm of the exercise, but now all of her senses were on alert. When the pair next to them lost track of which block followed which strike, the sergeant moved to them. In the next moment Kel struck low and felt Joren's staff glide out from under hers. He swung his staff around and up, slamming it down at her collarbone. She whipped the foot of her staff up and around her arm to deflect him. **

"Why the dirty little…" Thayet started.

"**This isn't a game, probationer!" snapped Wyldon. "Stick to the drill!"**

"Nothing to say to her partner?" Buri asked eyebrows raised.

**Kel saw a mocking gleam in Joren's eyes. So Neal was right, she thought. He isn't nice at all.**

George snorted, "That's an understatement."

**Joren held to the drill, but now each block had more force behind it, making it a block and a blow. Each time he struck he was a little closer to her. Will they yell at him if he drives me back? Kel wondered. Or will they only yell if I move out of line?**

"Excellent question," Alanna pointed out. "Well training master, what would have happened, hm?" Wyldon flushed and didn't answer.

"**Come on, Queenscove!" cried Zahir, the tall young Bazhir page. "Stop flinching!"**

"Now what's going on?" Gary scowled

**Kel glanced over: Zahir was driving Neal out of the line of boys, his staff a blur in the air. Neal was blocking Zahir's strikes, but just barely.**

"Wasn't he _your_ squire, dear?" Thayet inquired to Jonathan, raising an eyebrow.

**Wyldon and Ezeko went to Neal and Zahir just as the tip of Joren's staff banged into Kel's cheekbone. **

Kitten squawked indignantly.

**He forced her backward, striking hard. She kept her fingers away from his weapon, thinking fast. If Wyldon or the sergeant wasn't going to put a stop to this, she had to.**

**She turned to the side, forcing Joren to move out of line to keep up. In turning, she discovered that the other boys had gathered around Zahir and Neal. They formed a kind of wall in front of Joren and Kel. Neither of the teachers would be able to see what Joren was doing until they forced the pages to form lines again.**

"I see, so it was planned then," Gary observed

**Joren hit Kel hard and fast, raining blows on her. "Do you like this?" he demanded breathlessly as he pressed her. "Do you think you can keep up? Why don't you go home?"**

"Don't back down, Kel," Alanna whispered fiercely.

"**I belong here," Kel said grimly. She gave way before him, pushing his strikes to either side, thrusting their power away from her. "Just like that Lioness."**

"You tell him," the Lioness cheered.

"**Your precious Lioness is a mage and a cheat," sneered Joren, hate making him ugly. **

Alanna gasped in fury. "Why doesn't he come say that to my face."

George patted her arm soothingly, "He can't, love," he reminded her.

"Oh…right…I knew that."

**He tried thrusting his staff past her blocks. When she intercepted him, he'd swing to the side hoping to smash her ribs. Kel saw they had almost reached the barn that served as one wall of the yard. She would have to do something when they got there.**

"Cool head, this one," George observed.

**The butt of Joren's staff caught the big muscle in her left thigh. Kel winced, thinking that she'd had just about enough. Joren was all right with a staff, but he wasn't one of the emperor's ladies. **

Thayet smirked at this.

**Her brother had warned her against showing off her Yamani skills, but surely he didn't mean for her to lie down for a bully.**

"No, I most certainly did not" Everyone jumped and turned towards the door where Kel's brother Anders stood. He bowed to the king and queen then turned to Lord Wyldon. "I hope I'm not interrupting. I just got your message."

Raoul grinned and got up to shake his hand. "Not at all, glad you could make it," he answered. He then quickly made introductions to everyone. Anders' daughter wanted to follow in her favorite aunt's footsteps, and so he was in Corus to deliver her to the current training master. Since Raoul's message to him was a bit more detailed, Anders kinda already knew what was going on. "Grab a seat and join us," Raoul invited. Anders obliged.

"Would you like me to back up?" Wyldon offered politely.

"Not necessary," Anders answered, "I actually got here about the time everyone switched partners in staff training. I believe I can keep up." Wyldon nodded and resumed where he'd left off.

"**Why don't you just get out while you can still walk?" Joren whispered as Kel ran into the barn. **

"He really is a nasty one, isn't he?" Daine commented

**He faked a strike at her knee. When she blocked it, he turned his staff over, driving it at her ribs. This time Kel swung her weapon across her chest, pushing Joren's staff into the clear air at her side. Joren recovered, slightly off balance, and swung the butt of his weapon toward her ribs again.**

**Kel pivoted to the side, letting Joren's momentum carry him toward the barn. Holding her staff near the top, she thrust its low end between Joren's calves. He crashed face-first into the building. **

"Ha!" Alanna exclaimed.

**He spun – he was quick, she admitted – and struck at her wildly. **

**I'm done being polite, she thought grimly.**

"Is that what she's doing?" Gary asked. "I'd hate to see her angry."

**This time she thrust her staff under Joren's and up, between his hands. A quick twisting jerk yanked the wood from his grip and sent it flying. Kel then drove her staff toward the flesh at the base of his neck. There she let it rest. **

Everyone cheered.

**As Joren slid away from her along the barn, she followed, keeping the light pressure on his windpipe. If she'd had a glaive rather than a staff, she might have given him a scratch to make sure that he remembered the lesson.**

"Too bad she didn't," Myles observed. Everyone stared. "It seemed he too quickly forgot."

"**What on **_**earth**_** are you doing?" she heard Wyldon snap. "That was not staff work as it is practiced here!" **

"Really!" Alanna growled. "It's not like she started it."

"No, but she certainly finished it." Daine grinned. Alanna relaxed and grinned back.

"Can't argue with that."

**Joren looked at him over Kel's shoulder. Kel kept her eyes on Joren, not trusting him. **

"**She trained in the palace of the Yamani emperor." The dry voice belonged to Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat. "They're taught the use of a long-bladed pike – a glaive- there. How old were you when you started, Keladry?"**

"**Six," Kel replied. She finally lowered her staff and faced Wyldon.**

"Ah, that explains why she was able to beat a third-year page," Gary declared.

**The training master was red with anger. "This is Tortall, not the Yamani Islands – you are a noble, not a savage with a pigsticker. You will follow the assigned drills, understand? No Yamani cartwheels, no sleight of hand."**

"So you're not even the slightest upset with Joren over that whole mess?" Thayet scowled.

Wyldon shook his head. "I only saw her trip him into the barn and send his staff flying," he argued. "I was busy trying to keep Nealan from getting his head bashed in and the pages back in order. I didn't know who started it."

"Oh you knew," Thayet scolded.

"**It might be wise to teach Yamani methods," said Hakuin, the Shang Horse. Both he and the Wildcat leaned against the fence. Wyldon's claim that the Yamanis were savages hadn't changed Hakuin's cheery look. He added, "You are friends with the Islands now, but that hasn't always been so. Even with a royal marriage arranged, there are always misunderstandings."**

"**I will take your words under advisement," Wyldon said tersely. "If we may now resume practice? With no more diplays?"**

**But a pole arm makes it possible for a smaller warrior to take a big one, thought Kel, surprised by his attitude. That's why the imperial ladies are taught it, to save their honor and that of their charges.**

Wyldon paused, "I never considered that."

"What, that a pole arm makes it possible for a smaller warrior to take a big one, or that ladies should learn it to protect their honor?" Buri asked.

Wyldon grimaced, "The second."

Jonathan looked thoughtful. "It is something to consider," he added.

"**You practice with the probationer, Nealan," ordered Ezeko. "All of you, back in position."**

**After more time spent on staff work, in pairs and alone, Wyldon and the pages ran down the long slope behind the palace to the archery range. Kel stayed away from him. After her bout with Joren, it had seemed that every time she turned around, Wyldon was ordering her to adjust her grip on her staff, change her stance, get her blocks higher, strike lower. It wasn't right – he wasn't correcting the boys nearly as much as he did her – but she vowed she wouldn't let him know she thought so. She would prove that she could take whatever he threw at her.**

Wyldon shook his head ruefully. She had definitely proven herself many times over.

**At the archery range, she promised herself that she would not let any of the things she learned in the Islands affect her work here. She might have carried it off if she had been able to go at her own pace. She knew she was in trouble when the archery master told them that since they were expected to already know how to use a longbow, he wanted them to pick up their speed. He was everywhere, urging the pages to be quick, quick!**

**Soon everyone knew that when Kel got flustered, she gripped her bow in the wrong spot, two-thirds of the way down. Rushed, she drew the string with her thumb, not her index and middle fingers. She forgot that she used a short bow and pulled the string back so far that the arrow dropped away. She bit her tongue and said nothing of the differences between Yamani archery and Tortallan. It's not like I was any good with a Yamani bow, she told herself. After Wyldon's comments about foreigners, Kel let him think she made silly errors as she concentrated on correcting her draw and her handling of the arrow.**

**Stone, she told herself as she picked up a dropped arrow, hearing giggles. For a moment she was five again, listening to the Yamani children laugh and tease the clumsy foreign barbarian. They accepted me in the end, she told herself. These boys will too,**

That's my girl, Raoul thought. You just keep at it. You'll show them all.

"**Riding!" called Wyldon when the bell sounded the end of the class. "New boys, pick a mount from the spares. That horse will be yours to look after and ride for now. Saddle your mount and ride him out. Don't take forever!"**

Raoul rubbed his hands together. "Now I finally get to see how she ended up with that monster horse of hers."

**The pages set off for the stable at a trot. Halfway there, Kel noticed that the other four new pages were running full out to reach the stable first. She picked up her pace, knowing they wanted to beat her to the best choices of the spares. The group of older pages running ahead of her spread out and slowed down, blocking her without appearing to know that she wanted to pass. **

"For shame," Daine huffed. "Why can't they just let her have the same chance as everybody else."

"I think you'll be glad of it in the end," George said quietly. "Just wait and find out."

**When she got to the pages' stable, the new boys had made their selections. Their sponsors lounged in front of the stalls as if they dared Kel to even look at the others' selections.**

**They had left her with two options. One was a chestnut mare with dull, uninterested eyes and a slumped stance. You could be after her a whole week before she'd take a step, thought Kel. The other horse was a small destrier, larger than most of the other mounts but not as big as the warhorses ridden by knights. A gelding, he was a strawberry roan: red-brown stockings, face, mane, and tail, and a white-flecked reddish coat. His attention was fixed on Kel, and there was a calculating look in his eyes. There were large scars on his legs and sides. White-haired spots on his back showed where he'd been saddled improperly in the past.**

"Introducing, the monster horse!" Raoul announced.

"Oh, he's not that bad," Daine objected. Kitten croaked in disagreement. The temperamental beast had attempted to take a bite out of her when she got too close once. Kitten had stayed far away from her since.

**The other pages were halfway done saddling their mounts. Neal worked on his horse, a neat brown mare, as he kept an eye on Kel.**

**Kel advanced to the dull-eyed mare, hand outstretched. She had to thrust it under the mare's nose before the horse would so much as sniff. **

"Well that just won't do," Thayet sighed.

"**She's the one you want," a man said, coming out of the shadows at the back of the stable. His clothes were spiked with hay and splashed with dried slobber; his blond hair looked as if horses grazed on it. Light blue eyes bulged slightly in his reddish face. **

Alanna grinned and elbowed George.

**The dull mare ambled over and nuzzled him. "She's a bit slow, but she's steady. Peachblossom there's ruined for knight's work – maybe ruined for work at all." **

"That's before he met Kel," Raoul grinned.

**He shook his head, eyes sad. "Dunno what I'll do with 'im if he won't take to cart or plow. They're after me to free up his box for when the new mounts come next week.**

**Kel could see it in the stableman's face: he did know what he would have to do. Horses cost money to keep. If they didn't pay for their stall and feed by working, unless they were good for stud they were put down.**

"Oh dear, I think I see what you mean, George," Daine said, nodding in understanding.

**She walked over to the gelding. Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the apple she'd put there and offered it to Peachblossom. The horse spent more time examining her than sniffing the treat, but he took the apple all the same.**

"**He won't bite, miss," said the hostler, coming over. "Not with me about. But I can't make him stay good, not without neglecting others. Sooner or later my effect on him will wear off. And he's got plenty of other tricks."**

"**I'll take – did you say Peachblossom?" she asked. "If he doesn't work out, I'll trade him for one of these new horses you're expecting."**

Daine sighed affectionately, "She really is such a sweetheart."

"**He's too big, miss," argued the hostler. "He's not for someone that's just learning how knights ride."**

"**Let me try, please," Kel replied. "I won't hurt him."**

"**It's not him I'm worried for," insisted the man.**

"**Have you made a choice, probationer?" demanded Wyldon. "We ride today, remember."**

**The hostler grasped Peachblossom's head and laid his face on the horse's muzzle. "You'll be good, all right? I want you to, and sitting in here isn't what you're made for. Behave yourself, Peachblossom. You **_**do**_** know how." He released the horse and nodded to Kel. "He'll fare all right for a time, at least. If he gets shifty, tell him Stefan said 'be good.'" He ambled into the shadows at the stable's rear.**

**Kel found the gelding's tack and got to work saddling him. About to pull the girth tight, she found that Peachblossom was rounder than he'd first appeared. It was an old trick. The horse swallowed a bellyful of air. Making the saddle too loose, ensuring that the rider would slide off.**

"He's starting trouble already I see," Jonathan remarked.

**He's testing me, Kel thought. She kneed him in the belly. He turned and looked at her. "I'll tell Stefan on you," she whispered.**

Gary laughed.

**The horse blew out the air he'd sucked in. Kel cinched the girth tight. By the time Wyldon reached their end of the building, she and Peachblossom stood ready. Wyldon gazed at Kel and the horse. If he thought the mount was too big and too hostile for Kel, he kept it to himself. Instead he ordered her to clean the tack well before she used it again. That done, he told the pages to lead their mounts outside and down the hill.**

"I really wasn't sure what to think," Wyldon said. "I was surprised Stefan let her choose him."

**The practice yard was far enough from the stable that horses would not be forever trying to run for home. Kel was grateful for that. She was big for her age, but Peachblossom was big, too. If he raced for his stall she would flutter along behind him like a kite at the end of the rein.**

Gary laughed, "You have to admit, that would make for a funny scene."

**Wyldon and the riding master stood beside the open gate to the yard and observed as each page walked his mount through. Once everyone was inside, the riding master ordered them to form a line, with the horses' heads facing inward. After inspecting the horses, the riding master said quietly, "Mount up."**

**Has anyone ever mounted **_**down? **_**Kel wondered as she swung into the saddle. **

That drew a laugh from everybody.

**The moment she settled, she thought that perhaps she'd been rash. Peachblossom's back was much wider than her pony's **

"**Time was," Neal had explained the day before, "pages rode ponies till they were twelve or so. Our Stump, though, says that knights ride true horses, and so will pages. My father told me the number of broken bones from horse accidents had quadrupled since Wyldon became training master."**

Wyldon paused again, "Had it really? I knew some accidents had increased but I didn't think they had quadrupled."

**I should've taken the stupid one, thought Kel. This fellow is too much for me. Peachblossom sighed, as if he'd heard. Kel gritted her teeth. No. I'll keep him. He won't be pulling carts or killed for dogmeat, not while I have breath in my body. **

Raoul laughed, "And so, stray number two comes along."

Daine smiled, "I'm not so sure. Are you positive that Neal wasn't stray number one?" Everyone chuckled.

**Knights rode horses, so pages ride horses, she told herself, and sat tall. Peachblossom looked back at her as if to say, Don't get cocky.**

**Walk 'em sunwise," ordered the riding master. "A foot between you and the next rider."**

**Kel tugged the reins. Peachblossom didn't move. She tugged harder. Gods, his mouth must be as hard as stone, she thought, and yanked. At last the gelding understood, just as Wyldon ordered, "Move him along, probationer!"**

"Couldn't you at least have laid off that title?" Buri asked.

**Peachblossom turned and walked forward as soon as Kel nudged his sides with her feet. He paced along so amiably the Kel risked a look around. Most of the other mounts were restless, fighting rein and bit. Feeling better as she watched their riders struggle, she turned her eyes ahead. Peachblossom was stretching out his neck, trying to bite Neal's brown mare. Kel shortened her reins, pulling his head up. "You won't fool me," she whispered. The horse flicked an ear back toward her, listening. "I have nieces and nephews!"**

**Peachblossom blew out as if to say, Nieces and nephew are all very well, but they aren't **_**me.**_

Daine giggled.

"**Trot 'em," ordered the riding master.**

**Kel kept a watch on her mount. Peachblossom obviously could not be left to his own devices for so much as a breath. The remainder of the lesson was a series of contests between her and the tricky gelding.**

**When Kel waddled out of the stable, her legs feeling as if she still had a mountain between them, Wyldon stopped her. "The boys use the men's baths," he said without meeting her eyes. "We made arrangements for your bathing, for all that I feel it is a mistake to make even a single exception for you."**

"What would you have her do?" Alanna demanded. "Bathe with the boys?"

"That is exactly why I decided to make the exception," Wyldon argued.

"Grudgingly," Thayet added.

**So is this fair? Kel wondered. He's treating me differently from them. But I feel better about washing up by myself…It was too much to think about. She rubbed her head wearily. He seemed to want an answer of some kind. "I understand, my lord," she told him.**

**He lifted his eyebrows, as if he doubted she understood. "You will find a bath ready in your chambers," he said. "I expect you to be on time for lunch."**

**Kel bowed. "If I may go then, my lord?"**

**He nodded. She looked at the long, sloping rise to the palace. "You would do better to run that," remarked Wyldon. "You need the exercise. But I do not require it of the lads, and I will not ask it out you."**

"I think that's the first time you were actually fair to her that whole day," Daine observed.

**You won't ask it, but I'll do it anyway, she thought stubbornly. You'll see. I'm as good as any boy. I'm better.**

Wyldon smiled. Yes, I see that now, he thought affectionately.

**Slowly, her legs protesting every step of the way, she began to trot up the hill.**

Wyldon closed the book and offered it to Anders. "Would you like to read the next chapter?" he offered.

Anders accepted with a nod.

Wyldon gave George a look as if to say, Ha! Beat you to it! But of course Wyldon would never say such a thing so we must be mistaken. George merely raised an eyebrow in amusement and put an arm around his fiery wife as if to say, I just let you beat me to it. Your silly little victory look is just that, silly. But as I said, Wyldon would never say such a thing so George would have not needed to give such a response. Therefore, that entire exchange must be nothing more than our imagination. Right?


	5. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

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_A/N: Once again, thank you all so much for the reviews! Every time I read your reviews it makes me want to get to work! I apologize to everyone for the long wait. It actually takes longer to type out each chapter of the book then it does to add my own dialogue. I was off last week so I was able to get a lot more done, but now I am back to work so it takes a lot longer for me to get a chapter done. I hope you enjoy this one as much as you all have enjoyed those previous!_

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_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

_Wyldon closed the book and offered it to Anders. "Would you like to read the next chapter?" he offered._

_Anders accepted with a nod. _

_Wyldon gave George a look as if to say, Ha! Beat you to it! But of course Wyldon would never say such a thing so we must be mistaken. George merely raised an eyebrow in amusement and put an arm around his fiery wife as if to say, I just let you beat me to it. Your silly little victory look is just that, silly. But as I said, Wyldon would never say such a thing so George would have not needed to give such a response. Therefore, that entire exchange must be nothing more than our imagination. Right?_

* * *

Anders shook his head, why did he get the feeling he was missing something? Why was the Baron of Pirates Swoop and the Lord of Cavall giving each other such strange looks? Deciding not to give it any more thought, he cleared his throat and began to read.

**Chapter 4, Classrooms**

**Academic classes began after lunch, just as Kel began to feel her bruises. Her first two classes – reading and writing, then mathematics – were taught by shaven-headed Mithran priests in bright orange robes. Not long after the pages' arrival, the teachers put them to work on their first written lessons of the year. **

"Ah yes," Alanna sighed, "they never waste any time do they?"

Gary grinned. "Not when you have all that 'free time' to fill in." Alanna, Raoul, and Jonathan all laughed at their private joke.

"**History and the law of the realm," Neal murmured as they walked into their third class. "You'll like this!" He slapped the desk next to his. "Sit here. Sir Myles doesn't care where we put ourselves."**

Jonathan sighed, "Your class always was the best Myles. Don't clear your throat at me Numair, you weren't a teacher when I was a page."

"Oh . . . right," Numair muttered.

"**Sir Myles?" she asked.**

"**Sir Myles, Baron of Olau, our teacher in history and law," Neal explained. "Why do you ask?"**

**Kel ran her finger over a scratch on her desktop. "He's the Lioness's father," she told him shyly. Seeing him would be almost as good as meeting Lady Alanna herself.**

Myles smiled and shook his head. "Oh I doubt that very much, but it was sweet of her to think so."

"**Adoptive father, actually," Neal said as a small, chubby man entered the room. He was long-haired and bearded, dressed in a dark blue tunic over a dark gray linen shirt and gray hose. His green-brown eyes were sharp as he looked over the pages. **

"**Here we are, trembling on the brink of a new year." Sir Myles ambled up to the front of the room and leaned against the wall. "I'm pleased to see no one swung his scythe too hard and cut off his own head –"**

Everyone chuckled.

"**But not for lack of trying!" joked the redheaded Cleon.**

They all laughed again.

**The knight raised gracefully curved brows. "You did not have to say that," he said mildly, "You would not be worthy to be a page if you were not always trying something." He perched on a tall stool. "Well," he said companionably, "we've had quite a year. Will someone please explain why calling the recent deluge of battles the Immortals War is misleading? Your highness?"**

**Prince Roald ducked his head, but replied in a clear voice, "Because immortals – Stormwings, spidrens, orges – were in the fight, but they were just allies to Scanrans, Copper Islanders, and Carthaki renegades. They weren't the leaders."**

**Sir Myles did not seem to care whether his students stood to answer. "Very good." The man looked around. "How many of your home fiefs took damage in the fighting?"**

**Hands went up, Kel's among them. No part of the realm was unscathed.**

"**How many know someone who was killed?"**

**Hands went up again. Kel knew of two people in the village who had been cut to pieces by killer centaurs. Luckily her own family had been spared the loss of any members.**

Anders rubbed his leg. Very lucky, he thought, remembering how he got that injury.

"**Those losses are felt," Sir Myles told them. "Their majesties honor their sacrifice, and we all wish that it had not been needed." **

Jonathan and Thayet nodded sadly.

**As the hands went down he said briskly, "Why did this happen? How did Scanra, the Copper Isles, and the Carthaki rebels come to assault our shores? Joren?"**

"Why do I get this nagging feeling that I'm not going to like this answer?" Alanna frowned.

**The handsome boy lounged at his desk, seemingly bored. "The King's Champion killed a Copper Island princess thirteen years age."**

Alanna snorted, "Oh please, I did them a favor. The woman was insane." Jonathan nodded in agreement.

"**That is one reason: bad blood. It doesn't explain the Carthakis and the Scanrans."**

**Joren shrugged. "Scanrans always raid us. They don't need a reason."**

"He's just determined to pin this on me, isn't he," Alanna frowned again, starting to get annoyed.

"He was a bad seed, Alanna. Don't let it get to you," Myles advised.

"**But they do have reasons," Sir Myles pointed out. "Pressing ones that send them against us year after year. Put the Carthakis aside for now. Consider our gentle neighbors to the north. What riches do they have?"**

"**Furs?" suggested Faleron.**

"**Rocks," added Cleon, who got the laugh he'd intended.**

"Well, I think we've established who the class clown is," Gary chuckled.

**The discussion went on. It ranged from poor Scanrans with failed crops to the destruction of the old Carthaki emperor and the installation of the new one, Kaddar. When the bell rang, it surprised Kel – she had lost all track of time.**

"**So what do you think of the king's spymaster?" Neal murmured in her ear as they left the classroom.**

**Kel came to a dead stop. "What?"**

**Neal smirked. "You didn't know. Myles of Olau isn't just a teacher and a member of the King's Council. He's King Jonathan's spymaster."**

"**You're making that up," she accused him.**

Myles chuckled, "Is that really so hard to believe?"

"I'm sure she's just surprised is all," Alanna rushed to assure him.

"**Why?" he asked. "My father says he's the best spymaster the realm's had. It comes from Sir Myles going into trade to mend Olau finances. His merchants send him all kinds of information – he just expands on it."**

Myles turned a little pink at that compliment and poured himself another glass of wine.

"**Maybe you shouldn't tell," Kel pointed out. "Maybe it's supposed to be a secret."**

**Neal shrugged. "It's not talked of openly, but it's no secret. What's secret is who's his second in command, the one who does the legwork." He steered her into yet another classroom.**

George winked at Myles.

**Kel came to a full stop again. All thought of spies and secrets evaporated from her mind. One entire wall of this classroom was filled with windows. Two walls were lined with shelves of glass containers, which enclosed plants, water, food dishes, even animals or fish.**

Kitten chirped and whistled happily.

**Kel was glad to see that the other first-year pages seemed as amazed as she.**

"**Go ahead, look closer," Neal said. "Master Lindhall likes us to take an interest in the animals."**

**A small turtle was trying to bite Kel's index finger through the glass when something white and clicky landed on her outstretched arm. It was a kind of living skeleton, a creature of bone and air. It had **_**flown**_** to perch on her, yet its wings were empty, slender fans made of very long finger bones. It gripped her arm with fossil claws. It tilted its long, pointed skull back and forth as if it were looking her over.**

"Oh dear," Daine said, "I hope he doesn't scare her too badly. I can't seem to make him understand that he's a bit unsettling when people meet him for the first time."

**Leaning over, the thing clattered its jaws at her. Then it bit her nose so gently she felt only the barest pressure of its teeth.**

Daine groaned.

"**Bone!" A man strode over, brushing silvery blond hair from his eyes. "You must excuse Bonedancer," he told Kel in a soft and breathy voice. "There was no such thing as manners when he was alive, so he thinks he need not learn them now."**

"Pesky fossil," Daine whispered affectionately.

**Bonedancer looked at him and clattered his jaws.**

**Kel looked at the skeleton, then at the man. He was nearly a foot taller than she, tanned and weathered, with broad cheeks and pale blue eyes. "I don't understand."**

"She seems to be taking it well," Thayet remarked dryly.

**The man smiled. "A mage was briefly granted the power to raise the dead last year. Bonedancer was one the things she brought back to life. He was a fossil then, and a fossil he remains. He's just rather more lively than most fossils."**

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Numair smiled at Daine.

"No, but you certainly would have tried," she retorted. "At least he didn't mention the mage's name."

**It sounded like an explanation, but Kel was not sure she understood. I'll ask Neal, she told herself. "Thank you, sir," she told the man politely.**

"**I'm Lindhall Reed," he said to her and to the other first-years. "I am one of your teachers in the study of plants and animals. Have a seat, you new ones. As for everyone else, who brought me a plant from home?" he asked. The older pages and Neal reached into their belt-purses to draw out leaves and stems wrapped in parchment.**

**Kel took a desk near the irritable turtle and waited for her head to stop spinning. She was positive that none of her brothers had mentioned flying skeletons when they talked about their studies.**

Thayet chuckled, "I don't think I could have remained that calm."

"Yes as I recall, weren't you screaming K'miri curses and running around the room with Bonedancer chasing you the first time you met?" Jonathan asked, eyes dancing.

"Oh like you were much help, hiding behind your champion while I was being chased by a living skeleton!" Thayet retorted.

It wasn't the skeleton I was hiding from," Jonathan said with amusement lacing his voice.

Everyone laughed while Thayet muttered about arrogant kings not wanting to admit to being scared of a skeleton.

**After Master Reed's class, those who possessed a magical Gift went to study magecraft. Kel and the magic-less pages had a class with Tkaa the basilisk.**

"**For those who are new to the palace," the tall immortal began, "you should know that the king has decreed that those pages and squires without magic must learn to cope with magical things. You will have several teachers in this area. I will instruct you in the ways of immortals, of which I am one."**

**He bent down, until his large eyes gazed almost directly into Esmond of Nicoline's. "And immortals are…?" he inquired.**

"**Monsters?" replied the boy. **

"Well that's just rude," Daine huffed, insulted on behalf of Tkaa. Kitten squawked in annoyance of the boy.

**He gasped, panicked. "I mean – I beg pardon! Not monsters, of course not." He fell silent as the basilisk laid a paw gently on his shoulder.**

"Nice save," said Raoul sarcastically.

"**Beings from the divine realms, who may live forever unless they are killed in some way," Seaver said quietly.**

"_That's_ more like it," Daine nodded. Kitten chirped her agreement.

"**Very good," replied Tkaa.**

"**Some **_**are**_** monsters, sir," added Seaver, meeting Tkaa's gaze steadily. "My father was killed by a spidren." Kel thought of the one she had faced at Mindelan and swallowed hard.**

Anders sighed. He never told her, this but he had never been so scared in his life when he rode out of the forest and saw that spidren just a few feet away from his baby sister, and that included the Immortal's War.

"**My sympathies," replied the basilisk with a bow. "Spidrens **_**are**_** monstrous. Let me tell you of their creation, and of their habits."**

**The pages listened with fierce attention. Spidrens laired throughout the realm and were a deadly threat.**

"Glad to hear that they are taking it so seriously," Jonathan said approvingly.

**Their final class of the day was etiquette, taught by Upton Oakbridge, the royal master of ceremonies. **

"Ugh" Alanna groaned, "worst class of the whole day."

"I don't know," Gary replied, "I thought math was the worst."

"They tied," Raoul growled.

**The room was hot and the work so boring that Kel had to fight to stay awake. She ached all over from the morning's activity. The new pages were taught bows to nobles of different rank, which only made her muscles ache more. The older boys hid yawns as they practiced writing formal letters.**

**As the class drew to a close, everyone was given a book and assigned to report on its first chapter for the next day. When Kel saw the title, she grinned.**

"What's so funny?" Alanna demanded. George grabbed her arm to keep her from trying to get up and grab the book.

"I'm fairly certain we'll find out if you just let the poor man read, lass."

**Oakbridge was on her like a cat. "What amuses you, probationary page?"**

"What, now _he's_ got to use that title too?" Thayet remarked in annoyance.

**Can't he pretend I'm just like everyone else? Thought Kel as she got to her feet. "Nothing, sir."**

"Doesn't sound like I'm gonna find out now does it George," Alanna huffed.

"**But you are amused, it was quite clear. You must share the joke with us, probationary page, now, if you please." He stood before her desk, one fist planted solidly on a hip. She could hear his foot tapping briskly.**

"**Master Oakbridge –"**

"**Lord Wyldon shall school you properly in the matter of excuses. I will accept no more evasion, probationary page!"**

"That's already three times in this one conversation!" Thayet exclaimed.

**Kel opened the book and pointed to the author's name. "Sir, the writer is my father."**

Anders chuckled. "You would think he would have noticed that before handing it out."

**The master of ceremonies snatched the book away and scowled at the title page. "What of that?" he demanded. "The child does not have all of his father's knowledge."**

"All of _her _father's knowledge," Thayet muttered irritably.

**All of **_**her**_** father's knowledge, thought Kel irritably.**

"**Excuse me, Master Oakbridge," Neal said in his friendliest voice, "but Kel doesn't have all of **_**her **_**father's knowledge. Not **_**his**_**."**

Thayet was biting her lip trying to keep a straight face while everyone else laughed. "See, I was right," she chuckled.

**Dropping her blank Yamani mask-face, Kel glared at him.**

"What for?" Gary asked.

**Oakbridge also glared at Neal. "The majority of you are lads. Proper usage calls for male pronouns when males are part of the group."**

"**Except that you addressed Kel alone, which then demands the exact term."**

Thayet beamed. "Exactly!"

**Kel clenched her hands behind her, where Master Oakbridge could not see them. She promised herself that from now on she would try to sit as close to Neal as possible. She could not kick someone eight chairs away.**

"I still don't get it," Gary said confused.

"She's trying to keep him out of trouble," Wyldon offered.

"Ah, I see," Gary answered. Wyldon wasn't really sure that he did.

**Oakbridge gave Neal a look that would have stripped paint, then turned back to Kel. "You have not answered me," he said. "Have you your father's knowledge? You are but a child."**

"**Yamani etiquette is serious," Kel replied, her face once more Yamani-calm. "Especially at the emperor's court. People have their heads cut off if they don't bow right."**

"Really?" Daine asked swallowing. "Remind me to never visit the Yamani palace."

**Oakbridge stared at her for a moment. Then he pursed his lips. "Review this entire volume tonight, probationary page Keladry," he announced. **

"At least he used her name this time," Thayet muttered.

"**Tomorrow you will report on those parts that are familiar to you, and which parts, if any, are not. Should I be satisfied to the breadth and depth of your knowledge, I may call on you to assist me in preparing for courtesies to the Yamanis." To the pages he explained, "As I am certain his highness is well aware" – he looked at Prince Roald, who nodded – "their majesties have arranged for a state visit next fall by Princess Chisakami of the Yamani Empire. When she arrives, we shall know how to greet her and her attendants properly, according to their own custom. To that end –"**

"Oh sure, now you want her help," Buri rolled her eyes.

**The final bell of the afternoon rang. Kel gathered all her papers and books and followed the other pages out of the room.**

**Neal was waiting. "So, probationary page…" He grinned as Kel made a face. "How long did you live with the Yamanis?" They headed back to their rooms.**

"See, I'm not the only one who noticed his overuse of that stupid title," Thayet pointed out.

"**Six years," she replied. "Longer than I've lived in Tortall, actually." **

"**Can you speak – " Neal began as they stopped before Kel's door. He interrupted himself to sniff the air. "What's that smell?"**

**Kel leaned closer to her door and sniffed. "Urine," she said. There was a pool of yellowish liquid on the threshold. "I'd better clean it up."**

"Really," Alanna cried throwing up her hands. "As tiring as the first day was, you would think they wouldn't have given it a break."

"**No," ordered Neal. "You have to change for supper. I'll tell Salma and meet you in the mess hall. Get moving." He trotted away, shaking his head.**

"Well that was nice of him," Daine smiled.

**Kel juggled her school materials until she could pull out her key, then opened the door. At least none of the urine had leaked into the room; that was a blessing.**

**She closed the door with a sigh. What a disappointing day! Parts of the morning's exercise had been interesting, but the classwork was simply tedious. What good would etiquette do a knight? And how could she be expected to stay awake all afternoon when she'd been running all morning? Couldn't she just do the physical training and forget learning a whole new set of bows?**

"Just whose brilliant idea was it to change the order of physical training and classwork?" Alanna wondered aloud. No one answered her.

**It is not your place to question what the masters want you to learn, she told herself. Your place is to obey. It was what her Yamani teachers would have said if they had heard Kel's unhappy thoughts.**

**I just wish obedience was more exciting, she told them silently as she began to change her clothes for supper. Is that so much to ask?**

Wyldon chuckled.

**Once they had filled their trays, Kel and Neal went to the spot they had claimed as their own and sat. Kel picked up her fork, but Neal shook his head. She looked around. All of the boys had taken their places, but no one had begun to eat. She raised her eyebrows at Neal, who whispered, "No Stump."**

**Everyone fidgeted; Kel's stomach growled. At last the door opened. The squires jumped to their feet and bowed. Someone murmured, "The king."**

**Then everyone was up and bowing as two men – the king and Lord Wyldon – walked up to Wyldon's small table. Kel stared at the ruler whose domain she wanted to serve so much. King Jonathan was the handsomest man she had ever seen. **

Jonathan grinned, thinking that meant he was forgiven.

**He was an inch shorter than Wyldon, but the training master faded beside him. King Jonathan's neatly trimmed hair and beard were coal-black, framing a face that was tan from a summer outdoors. His nose was straight and proud. His eyes were a deep, brilliant sapphire blue, framed by long lashes. On any other man those lashes might have seemed feminine; not on the king.**

**He grinned; white teeth flashed against the black of his beard. "Don't let me keep you from your meal," he said in a clear baritone voice. "I remember what it was like from my own days at those tables."**

"**If your majesty will give the blessing?" asked Wyldon half bowing.**

**The king nodded. He stepped up to the lectern, raising his hands. "Bright Mithros, Great Mother, all gods powerful and small, grant us your blessings and guidance, we humbly pray." He brought his hands together and his audience realized he'd finished. **

"**So mote it be," responded the pages and squires raggedly. They had expected a longer prayer.**

"What would be the point in that?" Jonathan wanted to know.

"_Someone_ has a habit of giving longer prayers with a double meaning," Alanna accused, glaring at Wyldon. Wyldon sighed, he thought he just might have managed to get through a chapter without irking the Lady Knight, but it seems her annoyance with him returned with his appearance in the story.

"**Now eat," said the king. "After you're done, I'd like a word." He and the training master sat at Lord Wyldon's table. The fourth-year page whose task it was to wait on them rushed to put food before the two men.**

**Kel eased back onto her seat, her thoughts all in a jumble. She tried to sort them out as she ate. She wished she could ask the king why he had allowed Lord Wyldon to put her on probation for a year. In that original proclamation ten years ago, it was written that girls could try for their knight's shield; probation had not been mentioned. It wasn't fair, so why had he allowed it? Could she serve a king who wasn't just with her? Chivalry worked two ways: you gave good service to your overlord, and in return your overlord honored your service and treated you honestly. None of this adding extra conditions when all you wanted was the same chance everyone else got.**

Jonathan was pink with embarrassment and the women were all glaring at him.

**I suppose I'll never find the courage to ask him why flat out, she though sadly. I'll just bow and be polite like a good ambassador's daughter. **

"You might have never asked him outright, but I think you got your point across," Thayet remarked dryly.

**I bet Neal wouldn't hesitate to ask. She looked at her sponsor and smiled in spite of herself. Neal was eating his cake as his vegetables got cold on his plate.**

Alanna chuckled, remembering how difficult Neal could be when it came to his vegetables.

**When everyone had finished, the king went to stand at the lectern again. "Don't get up," he said as everyone began to rise. "If memory serves me, your legs are starting to get sore right about now."**

**A number of the boys chuckled. Kel looked at her hands, which were curled into fists in her lap. If you can't treat me properly, I'm not going to laugh at your jokes, she thought stubbornly.**

Alanna smirked at Jonathan as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"**I won't keep you long," the king promised. "I really just wanted to look at you."**

"**We survived the Immortals War, as they're calling it. We survived, but at a price. You know as well as I how many knights were lost, how many crippled. Thanks to Lord Wyldon, you older pages and squires were also able to fight, to defend our people. You did well – but I can see there are faces gone from this room who were present last fall. We shall miss those who are gone."**

"**Our enemies tried to destroy us. They failed – but we are hurt. Inside these walls, I can tell you, we are hurt. Our healing will be the work of years."**

**No one spoke. No one moved.**

"**Most importantly," he continued, speaking as he might to his closest friends, "it is the work or **_**your**_** years. Your studies, your bruises, your saddle sores, your nights spend doing mathematics, and history, and mapmaking. Your mastery of the arts of war, and of the laws of the realm."**

**King Jonathan paused for a moment, his eyes exploring their faces. Looking at him, Kel thought grudgingly, All right, he hasn't been fair, and he hasn't made Lord Wyldon treat me like the boys, but he's right about the work. I'll show them – I'll show him, and Lord Wyldon – that I'm good for that work as anybody else. Like the emperor's Chosen warriors. I'll be an example. They'll be sorry they ever treated me unjustly.**

Wyldon smiled wryly, you certainly made good on your threat, he thought affectionately.

"**Each one of you here is a gem, all the more precious because we lost so many. Combined, you are the treasure of the kingdom. Treat yourselves as such. Work hard, study hard, and know your value. Guard your strength, make it grow. Build your stores of learning. Do it not for yourselves or your teachers or your monarchs. Do it for the kingdom. Do it for us all." He looked them over one last time, nodded briskly, then strode out of the hall. He was gone before any of them remembered to bow.**

"Which was my intention," Jonathan said.

**As unhappy as her thoughts had been, Kel still had to remember to take a breath once the king had left the room. His presence was even stronger than the emperor's had been. She could see how people might fight and die for him, and how he could stir such fierce loyalty in calm and levelheaded men like her own father. Just a look around the room showed her boys who were still caught up and breathless after what he'd said. Even Neal, who seemed so world-weary, looked eager.**

**When he realized her eyes were on him, he smiled. "Isn't it a great time to be alive?" he asked. "Stormwings and spidrens to fight, beings from legends arrayed at our sides, people in need of protection and us being prepared to do it…Nothing happened in King Roald's time, and everything's happening now. We'll be sung about, our names will be passed on to our descendants."**

"What happened to that attitude when he was my squire?" Alanna wanted to know.

"**It's going to take a lot of work, that's for certain," she replied with a shrug.**

Raoul shook his head laughing, that's his girl.

**Neal propped his chin on one hand and gazed at her. "You aren't a bit romantic, are you?" he asked, amused.**

**She sat back and stared at him. She was beginning to think that Neal required a keeper. **

"You're just now figuring that out, lass?" George laughed.

**He seemed to have the craziest ideas. "Romance? Isn't that love-stuff?" she asked finally.**

Everyone laughed at that.

"**It's more than just love. It's color, and – and fire. You don't want things magnificent and filled with –with grandeur," he said, trying to make her understand. "You know, drama. Importance. Transcendent passion."**

"**I just want to be a knight," Kel retorted, putting her used tableware on her tray. "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you."**

"And Mother Kel, was born," Raoul remarked grinning.

**When she returned to her room, Kel found a small package on her desk. She looked it over. It was wrapped in canvas and addressed to her. The writing was ornate yet readable, like the style that market scribes used. The twine and canvas both were cheap quality, available to anyone with a few coppers to spend.**

Alanna smiled to herself.

**She drew her belt-knife to cut the twine, sawing until the cord parted. Kel put the blade down with a sigh. She would have to sharpen it yet again. It got dull very quickly. She hadn't thought to ask her parents for a new one before she left home.**

Guess I picked the right gift, Alanna thought.

**Opening the canvas wrap, she found a plain wooden box inside. Shaking her head – she didn't like mysteries of any kind – Kel opened the box. Inside she found a sheathed belt-knife. Like the box, the sheath was plain, made of the same kind of black leather that wrapped the hilt. The blade itself was a very different matter: it was steel as fine as anything that came out of the Yamani Islands, so sharp it would slice a hair. Kel knew that because the first thing she did was pluck one from her head and draw it lightly over the edge.**

**Underneath the knife was a small leather bag with a whetstone. Like the sheath and box, the bag was ordinary. The stone was high-quality goods. It would put on an edge even her old knife would hold. **

**Inside the bag was a parchment tag. Written on it, in the same common lettering, was "Goddess bless."**

"That's it?" Buri asked. "No mention as to who it was from?" Anders shook his head as everyone sat in puzzlement. Well, almost everyone.

**Kel had to sit on the bed. Who would send such a fine gift? Anyone in her family would include a proper note. Neal was friendly, but she couldn't see him spending this kind of money on her. She couldn't see anyone doing it.**

George squeezed Alanna's hand affectionately. She smiled up at him.

**She thought it over until the first after-supper bell rang: She had classwork, and Neal had invited her to study with him. Fretting over the identity of the gift-giver would not be of much use for now. She removed her old knife and clipped the new one to her belt, smoothing it with carful fingers before she gathered her books. The gift had come the first day of real classes, which told her there was one thing she could be sure of: someone wished her well.**

**Kel smiled. Someone wanted the probationary page to succeed.**

Alanna grinned. You bet, she thought fiercely. Sighing in satisfaction she sat back and opened the book "If no one objects, I think _I_ shall read the next chapter," she smirked.

Wyldon blinked. Oh come on, he thought glaring at George. George merely blinked innocently at him. Anders stared at the book in Alanna's hands, had she magicked it into her hands? And honestly, what was with the strange looks between the Lioness's husband and the former training master?

* * *

_A/N: Sorry, I don't think this one came out as well as my past chapters. There just didn't seem to be much for everyone to react to in this one. I was kinda afraid of that going in. I promise the next one will be better! I can already think of several instances in that chapter that will get some good reactions._


	6. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in _**bold** _is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

* * *

_A/N: To the overwhelmingly positive feedback I got from my last chapter, I humbly thank you all. Really I felt such a huge amount of support, that I sat down and instantly began typing up the next chapter! I love hearing what you think! _

_I've had a couple people offer to type the chapters for me and I __**seriously**__ considered taking you up on that. However, one comment I enjoy getting is that everyone is in character fairly well. As much as I hate to admit it, I think typing out the chapters helps me stay true to them. Also, I pick up on little things when I type it out that I never did before, and I own all the books and have probably read through them over a dozen times. For now I think it would be best if I continue to type out the chapters myself (despite the fact that this is quite a pain), but rest assured, I will let you know if I decide that it is getting ridiculous and I need help. Hope this one works out just as well for you all. *cracks knuckles and gets to work*_

* * *

_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

_Alanna grinned. You bet, she thought fiercely. Sighing in satisfaction she sat back and opened the book "If no one objects, I think I shall read the next chapter," she smirked. _

_Wyldon blinked. Oh come on, he thought glaring at George. George merely blinked innocently at him. Anders stared at the book in Alanna's hands, had she magicked it into her hands? And honestly, what was with the strange looks between the Lioness's husband and the former training master?_

* * *

**Chapter 5, Kel Backs Away**

Alanna frowned. That doesn't sound good, she thought.

**Five weeks after her arrival at the palace, Kel decided to write a letter to her family. It was hard to get started. That morning Peachblossom had stepped on her foot, bruising it even through her heavy riding boot. **

"Monster horse," muttered Raoul.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it," Daine objected.

**It seemed to hurt worse as the day wore on, distracting her in her classes and at supper. Only when she had propped the foot on a cushion placed on a stool did the throbbing ease enough to allow her to write.**

_**Dear Papa and Mama,**_

_**Thank you for the package with the candied fruit and cakes. I shared with my sponsor, Nealan of Queenscove. He liked the cakes very much.**_

_**I can't believe that five whole weeks have gone. I am working hard. The teachers are strict. Master Oakbridge, the master of ceremonies, is teaching Yamani etiquette from Papa's book. I have to show everyone the submissions so much that I get dizzy. My favorite class is mathematics. **_

Alanna groaned, that was her worst class.

_**I think the teacher, Master Ivor, is pleased with my work.**_

_**Tell Tilaine there are no banquets until Midwinter Festival so I haven't served the king at table yet. Pages get to practice serving Lord Wyldon and his guests at supper three days in a row. The new pages are last on the schedule so my turn won't come until late this year. I won't get to serve at the high table at Midwinter. Only senior pages get to wait on important people like the king.**_

_**I have a horse. He is a strawberry roan gelding named Peachblossom. He is too big for me, but I like him. He will be sold or killed if I do not keep him. He is very clever, and plays all kinds of tricks if I do not keep an eye on him.**_

"She makes him sound like he's only mischievous, not monstrous," Raoul remarked.

"He's not monstrous," Daine objected. "He's…he's…independent! And he doesn't care what anybody thinks of him! There's nothing wrong with that." Kitten's squawk sounded like she strongly disagreed.

_**Also, might I have some green tea from our stores? It is **__**very**__** expensive here, and I truly need something to drink at night as I do my classwork.**_

_**I did not pack enough dresses. We are allowed to wear our own clothes to supper unless there is a feast or something. Might I have some of my other gowns and some more shifts? And could they be let down an inch? I have grown a little.**_

**Kel smiled at the last paragraph, knowing it would surprise her mother. She had always preferred breeches for wear at home, unless they had to don kimonos for an event at the emperor's court. These days, however, Kel wore dresses whenever possible. She was not about to let the pages forget that there was a girl in their midst. Gowns at supper were just one way to remind them.**

"I doubt they ever forgot," Wyldon mumbled.

"How could they with _someone_ calling her 'probationer' all the time," Thayet retorted.

**What else could she tell her family? Kel stared at her letter, drumming her fingers. She decided to leave out that sometimes Prince Roald sat with her and Neal at supper. **

"That's my boy," Thayet said with pride.

**For one thing, it seemed like bragging. After all, the prince had made it a point to sit at meals with each of the pages at least once during the weeks since her arrival. That he sat with her and Neal the most could simply be due to his curiosity about the Yamanis. Kel suspected that Prince Roald wanted no one to guess that he was fretting about his coming marriage to Princess Chisakami. **

"Poor thing," Daine murmured. "Must be hard to be royalty sometimes." Numair squeezed her had. Daine had had a soft spot for Prince Roald and Princess Kalasin since the attack on Pirate's Swoop.

**Instead she wrote:**

_**Does Mama still have her sketchbook from the Islands? Her pictures are better than the ones in books in the palace libraries. Neal wants to know what things look like.**_

**That was true enough. Neal **_**was**_** curious about the Yamanis and how they lived, and if the prince also looked at the sketches, so much the better.**

"Now _that_ is sweet!" Thayet smiled. She was touched that Kel would go out of her way to help her son have a little peace of mind about an arranged marriage.

**She would not mention the bad things that happened, not the boys' tricks or Peachblossom's bad habits. That seemed too much like whining to her. **

"That's so like her," Raoul chuckled.

**Instead she shifted her foot to a better spot on the cushion and wrote on:**

_**There are sparrows who come to me for bread and the seed I get from the stables. They are practically tame, and eat at my windowsill. One of them is a female with a pale spot on her head. I named her Crown. She scolds the others and she is always the first at the food, so I think of her as their queen. The sparrows get up before dawn, and it is nice to hear them chirp while I dress. There is an amazing lizard-bird skeleton that is actually alive in my class on plants and animals. He likes bread too. Lucky for me, Neal said we can ask the cooks for extra food so I am not forever trying to sneak rolls out of the mess hall!**_

**What else could she say? They didn't have to know that only Neal and the prince would talk to her, or that yesterday she had been doused in a bath of muddy water when she stepped out of her room. **

"Those boys can be just _awful!_" Daine gasped.

**Thanks to that she had been **_**very**_** late to breakfast, causing the boys to growl as she came in. **

"Well then, don't dump muddy water on her before breakfast," Buri growled. "Idiots."

**For her lateness, Wyldon had given her a week of mucking out the stables from the first bell after supper until the second bell. She would just finish her letter with the cheerful bit about the sparrows.**

**Once she had finished, she turned to get her sealing wax and seal from her desk drawer. Her bruised foot slipped from its pillow to bang on the floor. She yelped.**

"Ouch," winced Jonathan in sympathy.

**Someone knocked on her door. "Kel, open up. It's me, Neal."**

"**Drat," she muttered, and went to let him in.**

Alanna laughed. "I know what you mean, Kel."

**As he stepped into the room, he saw her lucky cats. "Why are those things waving?"**

**She smiled. "The legend is that a cat waving to the first emperor drew him out of the path of an enemy arrow. The Yamanis make hundreds of them. "They're supposed to bring luck."**

"It's a fascinating story, I'd like to find out more about it sometime," Myles added.

"You should ask Shinko, I'm sure she would love to tell you," Thayet smiled.

"**Good thing you have so many, then," remarked Neal, picking one up and examining it.**

"Oh, ha, ha," Alanna rolled her eyes. "You could use them more then her, my dear ex-squire."

**Kel made a face at him. "Very funny." She hobbled over and put the cat back where it belonged.**

"**I **_**thought**_** you were limping in the mess," he said. "Have a seat and let me take a look."**

"**The door stays open," she warned him.**

"**Yes, yes, yes. Why are you holed up in here?" he demanded. "Come study with Roald and me."**

"**I will," she said, wincing as she lowered herself onto her bed. "I just had to finish a letter home. I wanted to thank them for the cakes and things."**

**Neal grabbed her footstool and sat by the bed. Gently he lifted her swollen foot onto his knees. "And you say Peachblossom wasn't trying to hurt you?" he said. Her foot was one large bruise.**

"**He wasn't," Kel retorted. "If he'd been **_**trying**_**, he'd have broken it. I really think he's starting to like – ow!"**

"See!" Daine exclaimed. "I told you he didn't mean it!"

"Somehow, the fact that her foot isn't broken is supposedly proving that he wasn't intentionally trying to hurt her, doesn't really help your case for him." Numair said dryly. Kitten nodded her head adamantly.

Daine huffed and crossed her arms, sulking.

"**There's no reason why you should have this kind of pain," muttered Neal, inspecting her toes. "It figures. You aren't at all ticklish."**

Daine giggled.

"**Very funny," she retorted, eyeing him nervously. "What are you going to do?"**

"**Fix it," he said. "Foot bruises take forever to heal without help."**

"**I don't know," Kel protested, carefully drawing her foot away. "The Yamanis say it's better to live with pain. You have to let it roll away like water off a stone. That way it doesn't have any power over you."**

"A very good point, but I think in this instance you can make an exception," Wyldon remarked. Everyone stared at him. "Well, it won't do much good to have her limping around during training!" he explained.

"**They sound like wonderful, cheerful people," commented Neal. "Any other useful warrior stoic arguments?"**

Myles chuckled.

**Kel shook her head. "What would Lord Wyldon say if he knew? **

"I just told you," Wyldon muttered.

**He told us knights work through pain all the time. He does it himself, you can see it hurts him to use that arm." Wyldon had shed his sling a week after the start of classes, and used his right arm now in weapons practice and riding. "Sometimes there's no healer around, or others need a healer more than you."**

"Except right now, you have a healer sitting in front of you offering to heal your foot, just let him do it," Alanna said exasperatedly.

"**Well, you're neither a stone nor a Yamani nor the Stump, in case you haven't noticed," Neal said tartly. **

"Exactly," Alanna nodded.

"**And it's foolish to stint on healing in a palace full of mages. Don't argue anymore." His voice was firm but his hands gentle as he drew her leg back onto his knees.**

"Well said, Neal," smiled Alanna.

**Kel thought of her Yamani teachers, who were taught as children to sit unmoving in icy rains for as much as an entire day. **

"That's a little extreme don't you think?" said Buri mildly.

**She**_** was**_** being weak, letting Neal do this. She ought to refuse the help, but she couldn't. Her foot hurt too much.**

**Neal rested her foot on his hands and bowed his head. A soft light of such a deep green as to be nearly black shimmered between his palms and Kel's flesh. She felt it as coolness that sank under her skin, and sighed. The pounding in her foot began to soften until it had ceased. Her toes shrank back to their normal size as she watched.**

"**I can't believe you gave up learning to be a healer," Kel said when Neal released her foot. "I can't believe you're happier as a page. An **_**old**_** page, at that!"**

**Neal made a face. "I can name three who were older when they started."**

"**Please don't," Kel said hurriedly. Once Neal started to give lists of things, even a three-person list, he would not be content until he also mentioned what books he'd learned their names from, who wrote them, and who disagreed with the writers of the original books. It was far easier not to let him get started. **

Daine giggled and poked Numair. "You too seem to have quite a bit in common."

"I'm not that bad!" Numair objected. "Am I?"

Everyone nodded in agreement with Daine and Numair sighed like a man sorely misunderstood.

**She said, "And don't tell me you did all this to be one of the oldest first-year pages in the realm."**

**Neal sighed, surveying his long-fingered hands. "On the Great Roll of Knights in the Hall of Crowns, twelve Queenscove knights are listed – only the Naxens have more. In the **_**Scroll of Salute**_**, King Jonathan the First wrote that four houses were the shield of Tortall: Legann, Naxen, ha Minch, and Queenscove. My brothers thought knighthood was the greatest service they could give."**

"So this is some strange sense of obligation?" Wyldon asked, raising his brows. "I find that interesting coming from a boy constantly challenging rules and authority."

"**But it isn't the only service **_**you**_** can give," protested Kel. "You've got brains. You've got the magical Gift. Why are you bashing about here?"**

"That's true," Jonathan added. "The realm could use _more_ than just knights."

"**Keeping you out of trouble," Neal said cheerfully. "Try resting your weight on that." As Kel stood and walked under his gaze, he continued, "As to that ill-tempered nag of yours, I have an idea."**

**She was no scholar, but she knew when a subject was closed. "He's not a nag, and I won't take another horse."**

"**I **_**know**_** that," said Neal, exaggeratedly patient. "But perhaps we can have someone talk to him on your behalf. Come on."**

Daine smiled, she knew what was coming next.

**He led her at a brisk walk through the classroom floor to a broad stair, up two stories, and down a hall. "The academics' rooms are on this floor and the one below," he explained. "Some of our teachers – the ones who aren't priests – live here. You won't get these two until later this year in magic class."**

**Neal strode to a door decorated with a bronze nameplate. **_**Numair Salmalin**_** was engraved in the metal. Below it, in letters more recently added, was the name **_**Veralidaine Sarrasri**_**. He rapped hard, then waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Why is he nervous, all of a sudden? wondered Kel.**

Daine was wondering the same thing.

**The door opened a crack and a young woman peered out. Brown curls tumbled around a face lit by blue-gray eyes. Her mouth was soft, her chin roundly stubborn. "Neal, hello," she whispered with a smile. "Did you want Numair? He's sleeping. He was up all last night and half today on a working."**

"**Actually, Daine, I wanted to ask a favor of you," Neal replied, keeping his own voice to a whisper. He was even more nervous than he'd been a moment ago. "It's for my friend, Kel, here. And her horse."**

**He likes her, Kel realized with amusement. A **_**lot**_**. **

"Excuse me?" Numair growled raising his brows. "Did you not notice the sign? She's already spoken for!"

"Oh hush, Numair," Daine scolded, trying to keep a straight face. "It's not as though he's flirting with me. The poor boy can't help how he feels."

Numair growled and grumbled to himself about how he needed to have a talk with this young man about staying away from _his_ woman.

**She'd had experiences with crushes – none of her own, of course, but her older sisters Adalia and Oranie were very prone to them.**

Anders laughed at that.

**Daine walked into the hall, closing the door gently behind her. "A horse?"**

**"He's contrary and mean," explained Neal, "and Kel here won't give him up. Keladry of Mindelan, this is Veralidaine Sarrasri. Daine, Kel."**

**Kel bowed.**

**"You're the one Bonedancer likes," Daine told her with a nod. "Lindhall says he's taken to you. And Neal doesn't like your horse."**

"Smart horse," Numair grumbled. Daine just giggled and shushed him.

**Kel shrugged. She hardly knew what to say. She'd heard so many odd stories about this woman since her family had returned from the Yamani Islands.**

Daine blushed.

**"We were thinking - I was thinking - you might take a look," explained Neal. "He's got a mouth like stone - can it be fixed? And he's mean clear through."**

"Maybe he's just a good judge of character," Numair muttered darkly. Daine poked him.

**"Let me see him," Daine replied. "What's his name?" Her eyes focused on Kel's, as if she could see into the girl's heart.**

"Oh now that's just silly," Daine blushed again.

**"Peachblossom," Kel said.**

**It wasn't until Daine smiled that Kel could look away from those blue-gray eyes. "Peachblossom? Not one I know, but then, I have little to do with the nobles' horses," she explained. "Let's have a look at him."**

**Neal did the talking as they walked down to Peachblossom's stable. He asked Daine a great many questions about people Kel did not know. She followed them, feeling out of place.**

"Come now girl, I'm sure you could think of something to say, don't let that _boy_ do all the talking," Numair encouraged.

**When they entered the stable, all of the horses came to the front of their stalls to greet Daine. Shyly Kel pointed her gelding out. Daine went to Peachblossom and stood nose to nose with him, her hands cupped under the horse's chin. Peachblossom's ears were pricked forward with interest. He was more relaxed with Daine than Kel had ever seen him.**

**Neal made the mistake of trying to stroke him. Back went the gelding's ears; up went his head. Neal snatched away his hand. "Excuse **_**me,**_**" he muttered.**

"I like this horse, Daine do you think you could introduce us?" Numair asked.

Daine smiled sweetly, "Of course dear, and when I'm done, I'll be sure to remind you what a _good judge of character_ he is."

Raoul, Alanna and George chuckled.

**Ignoring him, Daine ran her hands over the horse, inspecting every inch. Kel watched the examination. Peachblossom seemed to like Daine's touch. When she was finished, he rested his nose against her gown, which was now covered with horsehair.**

"**What do you want of him?" Daine asked Kel. "I can soften his mouth, but if you're forever dragging at the rein, it'll just get hard again. Stefan's done wonders with these scars, though Peachblossom says they still pain him some. I can mend those, but if you make him fight and you spur him as some do their mounts, he'll be scarred again. And I can't change his nature for you. Peachblossom is who he is; no one has the right to take that away."**

"**I wouldn't ask it." Kel replied firmly. **

Anders chuckled. "No I don't imagine you would."

"**We get on all right." Neal snorted. Kel ignored him, telling Daine, "If he didn't hurt from his scars, that might help, and softening his mouth would be a blessing. I'm not one for using the rein hard."**

"**That's what he says. He also says that if you promise never to use spurs, he'll mind his manners a bit more."**

"Well that explains why he was a bit more behaved with her after that…sometimes…when he felt like it…but only with her," mumbled Wyldon.

"**She has to have spurs when we get to riding in armor," Neal pointed out. "The St – Lord Wyldon makes all the third- and fourth-years wear them."**

"**There are spurs that don't cut the horse," said Daine quietly. "Peachblossom will settle for those. You really want to keep him?"**

**Kel shrugged. "It's drawing carts or death if I don't."**

"Which translates to 'I'm going to protect him no mater what'," Raoul chuckled.

"**I'll buy him," Daine offered. "I think I have enough. I'd take him off your hands and find you a better mount."**

**Peachblossom turned his head away from Daine to look at Kel. She felt a pang at the thought of losing him. She admired the big gelding's independence, the way he didn't seem to care if people liked him or not. **

"See! That's exactly how I described him! She agrees with me!" Daine exclaimed.

**She wished she could be more like that. Peachblossom would be happier with someone who could talk to him, though. Daine would be good to him.**

**Peachblossom put two hooves back, then two more. Another step, and he could turn away from Daine to face Kel. His ears twitched forward. When Kel, unbelieving, held out her open hand – as Neal winced – Peachblossom lowered his head and softly lipped her palm.**

"**That's that," remarked Daine. "He says you need looking after." **

"**I never thought I'd end up agreeing with a horse," murmured Neal.**

**Peachblossom's ears went flat. He blew a wad of spit onto Neal's shirt.**

"**He also says because he will let Kel ride him doesn't mean he has to be nice to everyone," Daine remarked, her eyes twinkling. **

"I have to say, I agree with her horse as well," Numair pointed out.

Daine grinned and tweaked his long nose. "See, you two _do_ have a lot in common."

"**Come to me, Peachblossom. We've still your hurts to mend." To Kel she added, "I'll teach him spoken commands for when you need him to go faster. You won't need spurs with those."**

**Neal walked Daine back to her rooms. Kel returned to the page's wing alone, feeling very much in the way and thinking of the classwork on her desk. **

"No, no, no!" Numair cried. "You weren't in the way, you should have all walked back together!"

"Oh come on, Numair!" replied Daine. "Nothing happened. And he still didn't flirt with me the whole time. He was a perfect gentleman."

**On the way she stopped at the mess hall kitchen. She helped herself to an apple and begged to rolls for her sparrows from a cook.**

**She was near her room when voices drew her attention. They came from the hall ahead. "Pages are supposed to be graceful, not clumsy." Kel knew Joren's mocking tones well. She froze.**

"Uh oh," Buri murmured.

"**Clumsy?" She also knew Merric's voice.**

**Something clattered and crashed; a boy yelped. Kel turned into the hall to see what was going on.**

**Three older pages stood over Merric, who had fallen. Apparently he'd been carrying a heavy pitcher and cups on a tray. Now milk had splashed everywhere and the dishes lay in pieces.**

"**Don't just grovel there," jeered Vinson, one of Joren's friends. "Stand up and mop it up."**

"**Fetch us another pitcher of milk, and fresh cups," added Joren. "How can we study if we are thirsty?"**

Alanna growled. "Looks like a bunch of bullies to me." The others frowned and leaned in with interest.

**Kel clenched her fists. It was the custom that Anders had described, the one in which older pages made first-years do errands to earn their right to be considered true pages. **

"This doesn't sound like the custom to me," Anders remarked dryly. "I agree with Lady Alanna, it sounds like bullies."

Alanna smiled at him. "Just Alanna is fine."

**Kel had done such errands herself for the prince. Most senior pages understood that first-years had little time for their work and gave them tasks that were small and quickly done. But she'd heard whispers that Joren liked the custom a bit too much, and liked to add a bit of pain to his errands.**

Wyldon frowned, he'd heard the same thing but he had no idea it was to this extent.

**Merric stood, dripping milk, his pale face crimson with shame. "I'll need cloths," he said.**

**Joren planted his hand on the smaller boy's back and shoved. Merric's feet slipped; he flew forward, landing on his face again. "Use what you're wearing for cloths," Joren said merrily. "They're doing well enough so far!"**

Now Raoul growled. "He sounds like he could use a thrashing."

Jonathan and Gary nodded in agreement.

"**And shut up while you're at it," added Vinson.**

"Him too," added George.

**The third member of their trio, Zahir, caught sight of Kel. He elbowed Joren and pointed to her.**

"Wait a minute!" Thayet cried and turned to her husband. "Your _squire_ was a bully?"

"Not when he was my squire," Jonathan shook his head.

"**Get mopping," Joren ordered Merric. "Every drop, mind." He turned to Kel. "What's the matter with you, **_**probationer?**_**" he demanded coldly.**

"Now look," Thayet said turning to Wyldon this time. "_Bullies_ are using that god-cursed title."

**Kel clenched her fists. "This is servants' work," she said. "It has nothing to do with being a page and fetching and carrying for people. It isn't what's meant by earning our way."**

"You tell them," Raoul agreed.

**Joren took a step forward. "This is none of your affair – unless you want what he's getting."**

**Merric looked at Kel, then away. Kel remained where she was, frozen with indecision. They were older, taller, and faster, with every muscle trained hard by Lord Wyldon. These student warriors would outrank her in the Yamani Islands. There she would owe them her obedience.**

"You're not in the Yamani Islands," George pointed out. "Still, it wouldn't be wise to try to take them all on yerself."

**In Yaman, picking on a younger warrior would be considered a waste of the time owed to your overlord, she thought numbly.**

"I have to agree with that point," Wyldon murmured.

**If I interfere, I might give Lord Wyldon an excuse to get rid of me, she realized.**

Wyldon sighed while he was the focus of the ladies glares once again.

**Joren's face went even harder. He came down the hall, fists raised.**

"Don't be stupid, get out of there," Gary yelled.

**For the first time in her life, Keladry of Mindelan ran from a fight with a bully. Reaching the safety of her room, she locked the door behind her. Even there, she thought she could still hear the laughter that had followed her escape.**

Alanna sighed, it's not as though Kel could fight them off herself, but she understood how hard it was to run from a fight.

**Somehow she managed a little classwork before the bell rang for bed. She got into her nightdress and crawled under the covers, shivering. Over and over she saw the scene in her mind, with poor Merric outnumbered and unable to fight back. He'd been right to be afraid, she told herself repeatedly. **_**She'd **_**been right to be afraid. Giving way to superior force was how their world worked. Someday she and Merric both would show Joren and his crew how it felt to be humiliated and afraid.**

"Yes you will," Alanna murmured.

**Someday they would fear **_**her.**_

**So, if she thought they would fear her, why didn't she feel better? She'd done the wise thing. Hadn't she?**

"You couldn't have won that fight," Myles said softly.

**You could tell on them, a voice whispered in her heart. You know they tripped Merric deliberately. No one is supposed to take the earning-your-way custom that far.**

"But she won't," Wyldon sighed.

**She flinched at the thought. Pages were not tattletales. They dealt with problems or suffered in silence. Everyone would despise her for breaking that unwritten law. Wyldon would despise her. Her brothers would shake their heads in shame. She would be sent home.**

"You probably wouldn't be _sent_ home, but no one would have approved," Anders said.

**You saw a bad thing done and you didn't raise a hand or speak out, argued her better self. Could you swear a knight's oath, knowing that you once let bullies get away with it?**

Nobody had anything to say to that.

**If I get in fights, won't Lord Wyldon use that as an excuse to be rid of me?**

"No," Wyldon whispered.

**Perhaps not. She'd heard Anders's stories. Pages were **_**expected**_** to fight, win or lose, and take the punishments doled out. Alanna the Lioness was in fights as a page. She got punished for them all. She took her punishment and never gave up the names of those she'd fought with. That was how things were done.**

Ander's nodded.

**Of course none of them had been on probation. Only Keladry of Mindelan was served **_**that**_** bowl of sour soup.**

Wyldon winced, never had he regretted something _so_ much.

**Stop feeling sorry for yourself! She scolded, trying to find a spot in her bed that wasn't hot from her thrashing around. We don't argue with custom; we obey it. Wiser people than us started such things, it's as simple as that.**

**But what if custom is wrong? demanded the part of her that believed in the code of chivalry. A knight must set things right.**

Jonathan nodded in agreement.

**I'm not a knight yet, she told herself, punching a pillow that seemed determined to smother her. I'm not even a real page. I'll worry about things like that when I am.**

**Shouldn't I worry about them all along? If I don't worry about them as a page or a squire, why should I care when I am a knight?**

"Good point," Raoul agreed.

**At last she slept.**

**The first thing she noticed that was not part of her unhappy night was the prickle of tiny claws on her hand. She opened her eyes and looked down. A sparrow – the female with the spot on her head that Kel had named Crown – stood on her hand, looking at her. Crown turned her head this way and that, as if trying to decide what to do with this great lazy girl who lay abed when the sun was about to rise.**

Daine smiled.

**Kel looked at her windows, certain she had not opened the lower set of shutters the night before. She was right. Only the small upper shutters were open. Crown had flown in through those, seeing well enough in the pre-dawn glow to land safely on Kel.**

**It seemed the bird had exhausted her supply of patience. She jumped onto Kel's chin and pecked her gently on the nose.**

Daine giggled.

"**All right," Kel croaked. At the first movement of her chin, the bird hopped back to her chest. "Tell your friends I'm coming."**

**Crown flew up and out of the open shutters, for all the world as if she had understood.**

**Neal said the animals around here are strange, Kel thought, tossing her blankets aside. I guess he's right.**

Daine blushed again.

**Lurching to the windows, she opened the lower shutters. The sparrow flock, brown and tan females and black-collared males alike, sat on the sill in a line, watching her.**

"**I hope you had a better night than I did," Kel told them, getting her rolls and seed.**

**In the mess hall, Neal squinted at her as she toyed with her breakfast. "You look as bad as I feel," he croaked. "Where's the sunny smile? The 'Hello, Neal, isn't it a **_**wonderful**_** day to be alive in the royal palace?' pain-in-the-bum greeting I usually get?"**

**Kel considered shoving her porridge into his face and decided against it. "I don't know," she said at last. "Why don't you go look for it?"**

Raoul raised his eyebrows, that didn't sound at all like his Kel.

**Neal sat up. "Ouch. It bites."**

Everyone laughed.

"**What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded sharply, tired of hiding the way she felt. "That I'll say 'yes' and 'so mote' to anything, smile and go along no matter what? Never argue, never complain?"**

**Neal looked more awake with every word. He ran his fingers through his hair. "What's gotten into you? Did somebody put hot peppers in you wash water?"**

"**Nothing." Kel slammed her bowl onto her tray and carried it to the servants.**

"Why didn't she tell him?" Gary wanted to know.

Raoul shook his head. "That's just not Kel. She likes to figure out how to fix things on her own.

"But maybe he could help," Gary argued.

"Don't you remember another young page who didn't want help with a bully?" asked Raoul.

Alanna blushed. "I could handle it by myself."

"See," Raoul chuckled, "it must be a girl thing."

**Neal stopped her at the mess door. "Did anything happen last night after you left?"**

"**Nothing," she said, biting off the words. "Not one gods-blest thing." She left him to finish breakfast and went back to her room for her practice jacket.**

**She was halfway there when Cleon stopped her. He was a third-year page, a joker who still sported a tan from days spent in his father's fields, bringing in the harvest.**

"**Page, I need my archer's glove," he told her with a grin. "Run to my room and fetch it." When Kel frowned at him, not wanting to be bothered just then, he flapped his hands. "Run along, now. Don't take all day. You don't want punishment duty for being late."**

"You know, I really don't like this whole earning-your-way business," Alanna observed. "It seems like just a big waste of time."

**As far as she knew, Cleon wasn't one of Joren's friends. He was just being a pain; the broad grin on his face told her that much.**

**What if I refused? she wondered, even as her feet started down the hall, carrying the rest of her with them. What could he do to me?**

**But she didn't refuse. If I'm to be a coward when I think someone goes too far with the custom, I might as well be one all the time, she thought bitterly. **

"Ouch," Numair grimaced. "That's being a little hard on yourself, don't you think?"

**She ran to do as she was bid. She caught up to Cleon as the pages were filing into their first practice of the day, and thrust his archery glove into his face. "Very good," he said, taking it. "You know, we all thought you wouldn't last this long."**

**Kel stared at him thinking, What and odd thing to say! **

"That _is _an odd thing to say," Daine agreed.

"**Last this long today, or last this long for five weeks?" she asked.**

"**In training. You know." He spread his arms, taking in their surroundings. "Everyone had bets on that you'd run home before a week was up." He shook his head smiling. "You might want to run now, while you still have the strength. Lord Wyldon will never let you stay."**

"**He might surprise you," Kel retorted, keeping her face Yamani-smooth.**

**Cleon smiled oddly. "He never surprises anyone." He sauntered into the yard.**

"There's a first time for everything," Wyldon smiled.

**Maybe he doesn't know Lord Wyldon as well as he thinks he does, Kel thought grimly as she followed him through the gate. I have to believe that.**

Daine sighed. "Poor, Kel," she murmured. "She's really having a tough time of it."

"I guess we didn't make it any easier on her," Jonathan said sheepishly.

"No you didn't," Thayet scolded. "You're all just lucky she's as determined as she is or you would have lost a valuable knight."

Jonathan nodded then blinked. Funny, I don't remember taking the book from Alanna. He looked up. Alanna had a smug look on her face and seemed fairly pleased with herself. George was staring at her like he was proud of her for something. Strangest of all, was that Wyldon seemed to be glaring at the two of them as if they had personally offended him. Did he miss something?


	7. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in __**bold**__ is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

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_A/N: Thank you all for your reviews. I never get tired of hearing what you think. I also want to thank you for sticking around. These last few chapters have been a little hard to keep up the humor for the story. It probably won't get better until after she stands up to Joren and his crew._

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_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

_Daine sighed. "Poor, Kel," she murmured. "She's really having a tough time of it."_

"_I guess we didn't make it any easier on her," Jonathan said sheepishly._

"_No you didn't," Thayet scolded. "You're all just lucky she's as determined as she is or you would have lost a valuable knight."_

_Jonathan nodded then blinked. Funny, I don't remember taking the book from Alanna. He looked up. Alanna had a smug look on her face and seemed fairly pleased with herself. George was staring at her like he was proud of her for something. Strangest of all, was that Wyldon seemed to be glaring at the two of them as if they had personally offended him. Did he miss something?_

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Jonathan shook his head. Whatever it was he was sure he didn't want to get in the middle of it. He cleared his throat and began.

**Chapter 6, The Lance**

Raoul grinned; he'd been looking forward to this part.

**Later that morning, when the pages arrived at the stable, new equipment had been placed beside their normal gear. The most important item, a saddle, boasted a high, padded front and back.**

**Extra hands had come to show the first-years how to handle the new items: Saddle, reins, double girths, and breast collars. Kel was glad to see that the man in Peachblossom's stall was the hostler Stefan. He was no common stablehand, yet he didn't seem to mind teaching her. Once he'd put the new saddle on her gelding and fastened every strap, he removed it and told Kel to try. Peachblossom sighed and shifted on his feet, just as Kel did when she was tired of dress fittings.**

Daine smiled. Peachblossom actually seemed to be taking it rather well, but she could definitely sympathize with his fidgeting.

"**Peachblossom says you didn't want Daine changing him," Stefan remarked, eyes following Kel as she positioned the saddle.**

"**She wouldn't do it," wheezed Kel. The new gear was**_** heavy**_**.**

"But you also didn't _want_ me to," Daine insisted.

"**But you didn't want her to," Stefan repeated.**

**Kel shrugged. "It seemed bad. Like, I don't know, like taking his soul."**

"Finally, someone who understands!" Daine exclaimed.

"**Not that buckle, the one next to it," Stefan told her a minute later, pointing.**

**Red-faced. Kel released the strap in her fingers and picked up the right one.**

"**He also says you promised not to rowel him."**

**Kel stared at the bandy-legged hostler, not sure what he meant. Then she remembered: **_**rowel**_** was another name for the pointed star-shaped type of spur favored by many knights. **

George chuckled.

"**That's right," she said, checking the girths.**

"**How will you get him to go faster?" Stefan wanted to know.**

"**She gave me words to say to him," replied Kel.**

**Stefan nodded. "She's clever, that Daine." He cleared his throat and said gruffly, "I didn't think you'd be one for the spur. Try to mount, now."**

"Well, she has Stefan's approval," George commented. "He's not one to just throw around compliments, he must really like her."

**That took practice. Kel banged her leg a few times before she managed to clear the high back. "I have to do this in **_**armor?"**_** she asked Stefan, who only grinned. **

Raoul laughed, "You'll manage, especially once you grow into that horse of yours."

**Kel wriggled in the saddle, testing her ability to move once she was seated. Peachblossom waited patiently for her to settle down. "About Peachblossom – I'd like to know who treated him so badly," she added, gathering her reins.**

"Don't you worry about that youngster," George chuckled darkly, "I'm sure Stefan took _good_ care of him."

**The little man chuckled. "Don't fret about that," he replied. "Leave it to me. The one that did it, he won't abuse another mount. You have my word." He slapped Peachblossom on the rear, sending the gelding out of the stall.**

**Once outside, Kel leaned down and told the horse, "I think I'll stay on his good side. Just in case."**

"Good call," George said.

**As usual, she was the last page to reach the long riding yard. Wyldon stood just inside the gate, a row of lances set against the fence beside him. Joren stood there, too. As each page rode by, Joren passed a lance up to him. He even passed one to Neal. By the time Kel reached Joren, only one of the twelve-foot-long weapons remained. Joren ignored her and mounted his horse.**

"Ignorant little miscreant," Thayet muttered angrily.

"**Take it," Wyldon ordered Kel, with a sharp nod at the lance.**

**Leaning down, she gripped the weapon and dragged it to her. It was like a very long staff in most ways. There was an indented grip cut into the wood eighteen inches from the butt, and the wood about the grip flared out to protect her hold. The lance was heavier than a staff, too. Kel gritted her teeth and settled the butt of the lance on the edge of her stirrup, as Lord Wyldon did.**

"This doesn't sound good," remarked Alanna. "She shouldn't be struggling with it this much. It should be heavy for her but it sounds like it's too heavy."

**The pages lined up. As Kel guided Peachblossom into line beside Seaver, Wyldon rode to stand in front of them.**

"**Before the immortals came, there was a clamor to cut jousting form tournaments," he said loudly. "It was said to be too risky. Even with a coromanel, a wide-faced piece, on the lance tip, to soften the impact, it was too dangerous. So few battles are fought between mounted knights, it was said. It was time to retire the lance. Tradition must change to come in step with modern times."**

**Wyldon turned his mount toward the far end of the field. There Kel saw five quintains – dummies painted like warriors and set on wooden posts. In place of each quintain's left arm was a wooden shield with a target circle painted on it. In place of the right arm was a pole weighted at the end by a sandbag.**

**Lord Wyldon braced his lance under his right arm and lowered it until it was level. Once in place, it pointed at an angle across the mare's withers, into the air on Wyldon's left.**

"**My lord?" asked Merric, raising a hand.**

**Lord Wyldon raised his eyebrows.**

"**Shouldn't it stick out straight in front of you, not across your saddle horn?"**

"I'm guessing he's never seen anyone joust before," guessed Raoul dryly.

**The older pages chuckled; Merric turned bright red at their amusement.**

"**Have you seen many tournaments?" Lord Wyldon inquired.**

**Merric shook his head, still blushing. "None, my lord." **

"**I could do it that way," the training master said. "Of course, I'd point my lance into the open air at my enemy's side. I'd risk walloping my own mount in the head. I assure you, they don't care for that.**"

"I don't think you'd care for it very much either," Daine pointed out.

"**And once my lance goes past my opponent, what would happen?"**

**Merric shook his head, speechless.**

"Disaster," Jonathan murmured.

"**Your horse rams into your opponent's mount head on," Prince Roald said quietly. "Chances are you wouldn't be able to get him out of the way in time."**

"Well said, son," Jonathan beamed.

"**Aim for your opponent's chest with the lance pointed straight ahead, and by the time you've hit him, you cannot turn your horse aside" Lord Wyldon told them. "Strike his shield at the right point, and the power of your blow will either break the shield or drive him all the way out of the saddle – and you can still turn your mount **_**away**_** from the enemy. Do you understand now?" he asked Merric.**

**The boy nodded.**

"**Always leave an escape route for your charger," Lord Wyldon said. He turned to face the quintain. Kicking his horse into a run, he thundered down on the target. As he neared it, he stood and leaned forward. His lance tip struck the circle painted on the quintain's shield. The dummy swung a half turn, and Wyldon thundered by. At the end of the yard, he turned his bay gelding, riding back to the line of pages.**

"**What is the best defense for a lone knight against a giant?" he cried.**

"**The lance!" shouted the older pages.**

"**What is the best defense against an ogre?" he demanded.**

"**The lance!" shouted all of the pages.**

"**What is the best defense against a spidren?" he wanted to know.**

"**A lance!" yelled his audience.**

"**Against a charging line of foot soldiers?" Now the riding master joined them, carrying his own lance.**

"**A lance!" cried everyone.**

"**If the foot soldiers aren't armed with pikes, anyway," Kel heard Neal mutter.**

"Good point," observed Gary. Wyldon paused, it was a good point but he wasn't about to say that out loud.

**Kel blinked. Neal was right. Pikes were heavy spears fourteen feet or longer. Used properly, they were defeat for horsemen, who speared their mounts on the pikes before they got within striking distance of the pikemen.**

**Wyldon halted in front of them. "A knight these days relies on the lance as much as the sword," he said quietly. "To use it, you must perfect both horsemanship and weapon. If you hit the quintain" – he pointed to the swinging dummy- "anywhere but the target circle, you will get a buffet from the sandbag to make the lesson stick. And it must stick. Immortals and enemy infantry do not forgive mistakes."**

Jonathan nodded solemnly.

**He dismounted and waved a fourth-year page to a line of chalk drawn across the near end of the yard. "I want you new lads up on this line. Watch the older ones as they charge. Notice they change position as they approach the target. See how the lance is couched and gripped."**

**The first-years obeyed. They watched sharply as page after page took his place on the line, settled his lance, and set his horse at the quintain. The fourth-year pages hit their target almost every time, but the younger the rider, the more likely it was that the sandbag would spin around and thump him as he rode by. At last it was the turn of the first-year pages. Kel grew more and more nervous, wiping sweaty palms on her sturdy practice clothes. She knew before he struck the target that Neal would miss the circle. **

"I don't think any first year hit the circle that day," remarked Wyldon as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"I'd have been impressed if they had," Raoul nodded.

**She covered her eyes as the sandbag thudded into his back. At least he couldn't be knocked out of the new saddle and onto the ground.**

"Aw, maybe she'll get a crush on Neal," Thayet giggled. Wyldon sighed; he really couldn't understand women and their silly romantic notions.

**We thank the gods for the blessings we have, she thought gloomily, and toed Peachblossom over to the chalk line. Behind her, the senior pages lined up. They would ride at the quintain again once she was done.**

**Wyldon strode over briskly. He resettled Kel's grip on the lance with impersonal hands, checked her saddle, and stood away at last. "The lance will slide back when you strike," he told her as he'd told the other first-years. "Let it. Now, lower it across your chest, till it points out over your mount's left shoulder. Once it's down, keep that point level!"**

**Kel struggled to raise the lance. It was quite happy to be lowered, and agonizingly hard to raise.**

"I'm so glad I never had to do anything like this," Daine muttered to herself.

"**Go!" ordered Wyldon.**

**Kel leaned forward, her back and shoulder muscles protesting as she fought to keep the lance tip from sagging. "Charge," she ordered Peachblossom.**

**The gelding took off, his speed thrusting Kel against the back of her saddle.**

"**Get your point up! Get it up!" cried Wyldon in a battlefield roar that cut through the thunder of Peachblossom's hooves. "Raise your **_**point!"**_

"I'm pretty sure she was trying," Alanna said dryly.

"I would have yelled the same to any of the boys," Wyldon objected.

**Kel fought the weapon and her fear of the horse. Never had she suspected that a full gallop on Peachblossom would feel like riding an avalanche. I should have just said, "Go faster," she thought weakly as the target loomed. Wrestling with the lance, she just clipped the shields edge. The quintain spun. The sandbag crashed into her side as Peachblossom thundered by.**

"Ouch," Buri winced in sympathy.

**Kel dragged on the reins as hard as she would have the day before. Peachblossom, already slowing, reared in protest against the pain in his newly soft mouth. The back on the jousting saddle kept her in her seat, just barely. Peachblossom walked backward, doing his best to keep her from falling. Kel loosened the reins, taking the pressure off the bit. Slowly the horse dropped until all four feet were planted firmly on the ground.**

**Kel leaned forward, the weight of her lance dragging at her arm. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the gelding. "I forgot your mouth. I won't do it again."**

"Good of her to apologize," Daine smiled. "Not everyone would. Though because it's her, I'm not surprised."

"**The horse is too big for that page," someone called. "I'm surprised you let him ride that gelding, Cavall."**

"That was me!" Raoul grinned

**Kel wilted. The pages had learned to ignore onlookers in the practice yards. She hadn't even noticed that an audience had gathered or thought that anyone in the audience might care enough to comment.**

"Aw, don't be upset," Raoul pleaded. "I was impressed you managed to stay on the horse. Besides, no one hits the target on the first try."

"**The probationer picked that mount herself, Goldenlake," replied Wyldon coldly. "She had a choice of horses, just like the others."**

"Not much of a choice thanks to those boys," Thayet grumbled.

**Humiliated, Kel braced her lance on her stirrup – once it was upright, she could control the wretched thing – and turned Peachblossom.**

**A squad of warriors mounted on fine horses watched from outside the yard's fence. They wore the chain mail, blue and silver tunic, and white burnoose of the King's Own, the crown's elite guard.**

**Kel wished she could just sink into the ground and prayed that her Yamani schooling kept the humiliation out of her face. These men were as admired as knights, and they had seen her disgraceful try. Most were grinning.**

Raoul laughed, "Don't worry; you'll make most of them eat their words from that day."

**One of them, a very tall big man with rosy cheeks and black eyes, stared at Kel. "This is the girl?" he asked, startled. It was he who had commented to Wyldon. **

"See, there I am!" cried Raoul excitedly.

"Yes dear, we noticed," Buri remarked mildly.

**The training master grimaced. "Keladry of Mindelan. She knows she may exchange her mount for another, and has chosen not to do so. Have you something we may assist you with?"**

**The big man shook his head. "Not this time. We've reports of a lone tauros sighted near one of the fishing villages upriver."**

Daine winced, remembering her own run in with one of those immortals in the divine realms.

**Kel was trying to remember what a tauros was when a Bazhir with the squad commented dryly, "No doubt it is a strayed bull."**

**That's it, Kel remembered. Tausoses were creatures with bull's heads and men's bodies, huge, witless monsters who preyed on women.**

Only cause no one thought to make sure they had women of their own kind, Daine thought angrily.

"**Stray bull or not, we'll handle it," said the big rider. "You and your lot will get the chance to help us soon enough, Cavall." He touched his fingers to his forehead in an ironic salute, and rode off at the front of the squad.**

"**If we may proceed?" Wyldon asked the pages. "You will have plenty of chances to gawk at Raoul of Goldenlake in the future."**

**Kel bit the inside of her cheek. Raoul of Goldenlake was the Knight Commander of the King's Own, one of the realm's finest warriors.**

Raoul preened at that. "Oh horse lords, now look what you've done," groaned Buri in annoyance. "They'll be no living with him after this." _(A/N: Hee hee, couldn't resist, mate.) _

**Neal rode over to her. "Are you all right? You have the oddest look on your face."**

**Kel shook her head. "I'm just embarrassed. I don't suppose you know how to make people vanish."**

Everyone chuckled.

"**It's not something they teach healers," he said dryly, riding to the starting line with her. "If I could, I'd do it all the time. Don't fret. Nobody hits the mark their first day."**

"**But in front of Sir Raoul of Goldenlake," she replied in a low voice. "Who fought a giant **_**on foot**_** and won."**

"**Actually, he's Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak – the king elevated him to the peerage in April," Neal informed her. "And it was only a twenty-foot giant."**

"**Oh, well, I don't feel half so stupid now," muttered Kel. **

Everyone laughed.

**Time to change the subject. **

"Yes, please," Buri sighed. "Before my husband's ego grows any bigger."

"Now dear," Raoul answered patronizingly, "just because you're jealous she doesn't think as highly of you, is no reason to take it out on me."

Buri glared in response. "_Somebody_, better watch his mouth before he ends up sleeping out here in the sitting room. Raoul quieted, knowing she would make good on her threat.

"**What was that about us helping the King's Own?"**

"**The Stump likes us to get battle experience against immortals. If there's something close by, the King's Own takes us along."**

**Wyldon called, "You older pages practice separately. Get to it." They drifted to the other four quintains, leaving the first-years to practice under Wyldon's eye.**

**Wyldon beckoned to Quinden of Marti's Hill, indicating he should tilt next. "Excuse me, your lordship, but am I older or younger today?" Neal asked.**

Anders laughed and shook his head, "Now I see what Kel meant when she said she had her hands full trying to keep him out of trouble."

"**One day I will tie that insolent tongue of yours in a knot," replied Wyldon absently as he watched Quinden settle his lance. "You may tilt with the first-years."**

**Kel saw Neal open his mouth to reply, and swung Peachblossom into Neal's brown mare. The mare skipped away as Peachblossom half turned, ensuring that the gelding caught just a fold of Neal's practice clothes in his teeth instead of Neal's right leg. By the time Kel had persuaded her mount to release her friend, Neal had forgotten whatever answer he'd been about to give the training master.**

"I see what you mean," Wyldon commented to Anders dryly as everyone fought to keep a straight face.

**Kel rode four more times at the quintain. Each try was a fight with the heavy lance; not once did she manage to keep the point high enough to strike the circle. By her third run, her arms felt as weak as overcooked noodles. Kel dragged as she brushed Peachblossom, cleaned her new tack, cut her name onto her lance, and rubbed oil into it. Only when those chores were done could she return to the castle and her waiting bath.**

Alanna frowned. "I know it's exhausting and difficult the first day, but I still say she shouldn't have been struggling quite that much."

"**What's wrong?" Neal asked as they stood in line for lunch. "You've been quiet all day, not that you ever chatter." He peered at her so worriedly that Kel had to smile.**

"**I didn't sleep well, that's all," she told him. "I'm sorry I was grumpy."**

"**Stop pushing Esmond!" growled someone behind her. The next minute Kel was knocked out of line. Turning, she saw that the one who'd bumped her was Merric. Beet-red, he mumbled an apology and shoved Esmond in revenge. It gave him a reason to turn his back on Kel as she resumed her place.**

**He can't even look at me. She thought miserably, leaning against the wall. And I can't look at him. Wonderful.**

"It will pass," Myles encouraged gently. "I'm sure you'll find a way to make it right."

**She was leaving to collect her books and papers when Cleon stopped her once again. "Page Keladry," he announced with a broad grin, "my flower, my dove, I need more ink. Run along to stores and fetch me some."**

"Run along yourself," Alanna grumbled. "I'm so glad this stupid tradition wasn't around when we were pages. It's stupid and a complete waste of time."

"You called it stupid twice," Numair smiled.

"That's cause it's twice as stupid as before," she grinned cheekily.

"**Leave her be, Cleon," said Neal sternly. "She's got enough to worry about without doing your errands."**

**Cleon stared at him. The senior pages were always cautious when it came to Neal. First-year or not, he was older and taller than all of them, and once he lost his temper, he didn't seem to care if he got hurt. Boys who thought nothing of pushing someone like Kel, Merric, or the other first-years around tended to leave Neal alone. "I didn't ask you Neal," Cleon retorted at last. "She has to get used to running errands sometime."**

"**Even the nobles hardly ask us to do things for them," argued Neal hotly. "They know we're kept trotting."**

**Kel ran to do as she was told, shaking her head. Trust Neal to extend the whole matter by debating about it.**

Alanna sighed tiredly, "Yes, I know."

**She made it to their first class just in time, handing Cleon his ink as she rushed to her seat. Only when she was down and had begun to sort out the mess of her own books and papers did she see how little she'd finished the night before. When Master Yayin, who taught reading and writing, requested her work, she stood and admitted that she didn't have it, as tradition demanded.**

**The Mithran's thick brows came together with a scowl. "Very well, Page Keladry," he said, "report to us orally on the chapter you were to write about."**

**Kel swallowed hard, fighting to keep her feelings out of her face. "I did not read it, Master Yayin," she replied staring past him.**

"**No sense in arguing with a Lump," someone at the back of the room muttered.**

"Who said that," Alanna snapped.

Jonathan looked up, "I don't know, it doesn't say."

"Are you sure," she demanded.

"Pretty sure, unless his name was 'someone at the back of the room'."

"**Silence!" the teacher snapped. His favored prop was a long wooden rod he used as a pointer. In the first week of classes, Kel had learned that the rod also indicated the teacher's moods. Now he tapped its point slowly and steadily on the floor.**

**Bad sign, thought Kel, damp at her temples and palms. Very bad sign.**

"**Page Keladry, have you an explanation?"**

**Custom dictated only one reply. Explanations were regarded as excuses. I am stone, Kel reminded herself. "No, Master Yayin." She squeezed the words out of a tight throat.**

"**Page Keladry, if you cannot perform a modicum of the work required, you do not belong here," the teacher informed her coldly. "Reconsider your commitment to your studies. Tomorrow you will summarize the next three chapters in the book. Sit down."**

"Harsh," Numair muttered.

**Kel sat. She could hear snickers from the other pages, but she kept her face as smooth as stone.**

**In mathematics, she winced when she saw how creased and blotted her sheet of last night's problems was. She handed it in anyway, and sat through class with shoulders hunched, waiting for a reprimand. Master Ivor liked to correct their work at his desk as one of them solved a problem on a large slate in front of the room; somehow he did both easily. Papers, with his written comments, were handed back at the end of the class. He gave Kel hers with raised eyebrows, then passed to the next student. She looked down and read the note he'd scrawled on the cleanest part of the paper: "I hardly believe this is yours. Redo it, **_**properly,**_** with tonight's assignment."**

**She could have kissed him, she was so relieved. At least he did not want to humiliate her, even though she'd disappointed him. Since mathematics was her favorite class, she hated the idea that he might think her lazy.**

Buri grabbed her list of people she liked that had been sitting neglected for the last few chapters and scribbled down Maser Ivor's name. It was awfully nice of him not to comment on it in front of everybody.

**Sir Myles did not assign written work, only reading, and didn't call on Kel for anything. The thought that he might kept her nervous through the class – she couldn't even remember what he'd assigned until the boys he did call on talked about the material. **

"Yes, despite her mask, it was obvious she was a little distressed," Myles murmured.

**On her way out of class, Sir Myles asked, "Keladry? Might I have a word?"**

"**He probably wants to know what the Yamani emperor has for breakfast," Neal muttered out of the side of his mouth.**

Myles looked thoughtful. Now that Neal mentioned it, he _did_ want to know what the Yamani emperor had for breakfast. He looked at George who smirked and nodded. When he looked away George rolled his eyes at his wife who was trying to stifle her giggles in her hand.

**Kel frowned at her friend and walked up to the plump teacher's desk. It took an effort of will to keep her hands flat at her side, not twisting nervously together. "Is everything well?" Sir Myles wanted to know. "You look wan."**

"**Sir?" she asked, puzzled by the word and wondering why he'd singled her out.**

"**Tired, pale. Exhausted. Are you getting enough rest? The boys aren't hounding you, are they?"**

**Kel shook her head nervously. "No, sir. I'm fine. Couldn't be better."**

Myles snorted unbelievingly.

**His beautifully curved eyebrows rose. "And of course it would be shameful of you to say otherwise."**

**Here, at least, Kel was on firm ground. "Yes, sir."**

"**A page must endure everything that comes."**

"**Yes, sir." At last – answers that she knew!**

"I was being sarcastic," Myles mumbled.

"**And where did you learn this?" Myles inquired mildly. "From Sir Wyldon, that paragon of knightly virtue?"**

"Do you have a problem with my knightly virtue?" Wyldon asked Myles in amusement.

"Not at all," Myles answered with a straight face. "You sir, are a knight that all other knights should aspire to be."

Alanna groaned, "I think I'm hallucinating. I could have sworn that Wyldon and my adoptive father were just joking with each other."

"Whatever you may think or me lady knight, I do in fact possess a sense of humor," Wyldon replied. Alanna decided she was in fact hallucinating, and perhaps the hallucinations would cease if she just pretended it didn't happen.

**Kel frowned. Was Sir Myles being sarcastic? "I learned it from my brothers, and from the emperor's warriors, at the Yamani imperial court. Sir."**

**The eyebrows lifted another quarter of an inch; Myles tilted his head to one side. He reminded Kel of the sparrow Crown, who had pecked her nose that morning. Suddenly her gloom lifted a touch; she ducked her head to hide a smile.**

Myles chuckled. "I'm glad I could help," was his response.

"**What does it take to be a Yamani warrior?" Myles inquired. He seemed genuinely interested.**

"**It takes a great deal of running up and down mountains in the rain, and not complaining about it," Kel said instantly, then clapped her hand over her mouth. **

Everyone laughed.

**What if he thought she was being impudent? But there was something about him, a sort of waiting kindness that made her want to answer him frankly.**

Alanna smiled, she knew exactly what Kel meant.

**To her relief, Myles chuckled. "I've heard of this odd behavior," he admitted. "But you admire the Yamanis."**

"**Oh, yes, sir!" she replied, nodding. "They keep going through **_**anything.**_**"**

**Myles sighed. "It's my misfortune to be dumped amid so many warrior stoics," he remarked, shaking his head.**

"**Sir?" she asked, confused. That sounded like the best company in the world.**

Gary grinned. "Sorry Myles, maybe next generation."

"**Never mind. Run along to Master Lindhall. And, Keladry –"**

**She turned halfway to the door. "Sir?"**

"**If you need a friend – if you need someone to talk to – the servants can tell you where to find me."**

**She stared at him for a moment. The Lioness's adoptive father was offering **_**her**_** friendship!**

"**Thank you, sir," she said, and bowed deeply.**

**Myles waved her on.**

Alanna smiled at her adoptive father. She was glad he was able to be there for Keladry even though she couldn't.

**Somehow Kel got through the rest of the afternoon without further mishap. She'd completed her night's work for Master Lindhall and Tkaa the basilisk, and could hand it in with a free conscience. In etiquette Master Oakbridge was still using her as a secondary teacher of Yamani manners, and had not assigned other work to her. She had no awkward excuses to make to him.**

**As she changed into a dress for supper, memories of her flight from Joren and his friends, kept at bay by exercise and worry about classwork, came rushing back. Angry with herself, she picked up the practice glaive she'd brought from home and did a series of quick exercises with it. When she finished, her arms – already tired from that morning's work with the lance – were trembling. It was time to go to the mess hall.**

**Enough fussing, she ordered herself. Next time I'll just say something, is all. Even if it's against tradition. I won't have another day when I go around feeling like a whipped dog because I turned my back on Merric!**

Raoul chuckled. "Next time" looked as though it was going to get very interesting.

**At supper, Prince Roald and Neal discussed the problems they'd been set in mage training while Kel considered her problem with the lance. Her second-oldest brother, Inness, had told her loftily that a girl's arms were not as strong as a boy's. After that morning she had to agree. All of the other first-year pages had been able to keep their lances from pointing at the ground.**

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Anders said.

**I have to train harder, decided Kel. I have to strengthen my arms.**

**She fiddled with her spoon, wondering if she'd ever be able to lift that cursed lance. **

"You'll do a lot more then just lift it," Raoul smiled.

**Then Joren's voice rang out across the room: "I swear, those Shang warriors have an exercise for **_**everything.**_**"**

"**If you wish to be a herald, Joren, apply to their college in the morning," Wyldon said, raising his own voice. "Until then, converse in a more seemly way."**

Everyone laughed, though mostly cause they were happy to finally see Joren get in trouble for something.

**A brief hush fell. As Wyldon gave the signal to rise, Neal asked her, "Are you studying with us tonight?"**

"**In a while," she promised. "Do you know where I might find the Wildcat?" For once, Joren had helped her. If anyone would know how to strengthen her arms, it would be a Shang warrior who spent her life fighting men.**

"See, I knew you'd figure it out," said Anders proudly.

**She had to try a couple of the places Neal and Roald suggested, but was successful at last. Eda Bell was happy to show Kel exercises for the arms. The hardest involved lying flat on the ground, pushing the body up with both arms, lowering it partway, then pushing up again. Kel managed only three of these exercises under the Wildcat's eye before her exhausted arms gave out. Eda promised her that if she kept exercising, she would do better soon. Feeling hopeful, Kel headed back to the pages' wing.**

"I'm glad this one ended on a happier note," Daine remarked. "But she still seems to be having such a tough time."

"I'm sure it will get better magelet," Numair reassured her. "Thank you Kitten," he said as he took the offered book from the young dragon. "I will be happy to read next."


	8. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in __**bold**__ is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

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_A/N: Thanks again everyone for sticking with me. I apologize for the fewer comments in the last chapter. I just didn't see anyone having much to say about it. Maybe it was just me. Anyway, I shall strive to do better. _

_Panthergirlrt: Kel is not present for the reading of the story, nor are any of her friends. This is all the older generation, except for Daine but she hangs with that generation more anyway. I do have plans for her and her friends, though you will not see them in this story. Sorry._

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_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

"_I'm glad this one ended on a happier note," Daine remarked. "But she still seems to be having such a tough time."_

"_I'm sure it will get better magelet," Numair reassured her. "Thank you Kitten," he said as he took the offered book from the young dragon. "I will be happy to read next."_

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Kitten clambered up beside Daine and trilled excitedly. It was obvious that the little dragon was enjoying the story. Daine smiled; sometimes she forgot that Kitten was just a baby among her kind. She should try reading to her more.

**Chapter 7, Kel Takes a Stand**

"Oh good," Thayet sighed with relief. "It's about time she dealt with those boys."

"You do know that doing so will land her in trouble, right?" Jonathan asked her.

"I know but _something_ has to be done about it. She's not really the kind of girl to just sit back and take their crap forever," Thayet exclaimed.

**For the next three days Kel pursued her classwork and physical training doggedly. When Sunday came at last, she and the other pages attended dawn worship for Mithros, the god of warriors and the sun. After that she gave her weapons and tack an extra cleaning for Lord Wyldon's inspection just before lunch. When he finished going over every inch of a page's equipment, he gave punishment assignments for the penalties collected during the week.**

**Kel had been late to one class, to one meal, and to the riding corral the day before, when Peachblossom was grumpier than usual. **

Daine sighed. Oh Peachblossom, she thought, was it really necessary to get her in trouble?

**For each of those tardy arrivals Lord Wyldon issued her work in the pages' armory for one bell of time, consuming her entire afternoon. All of the other pages had punishment duty too. Merric and Olin fared worse than Kel. They had to work all afternoon and for a bell on Sunday night. **

"**I'd like to find whoever taught the Stump that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.**

Wyldon snorted. "I'd love to see you try," he said. "It would be very entertaining to watch."

**She smiled and returned to solving a puzzle. How was she to do her classwork for Monday if she was cleaning armor? At last she hit on a plan and bore her work to the armory. First, she rolled chain mail in barrels full of sand to scour away dirt, until she wearied. Then she attacked her assignments. At her first yawn Kel returned to cleaning. When the supper bell rang, she had scoured a large amount of mail and finished nearly all her classwork. **

"Why didn't I think of that?" wondered Gary aloud.

"I was wondering the same thing," said Raoul.

"She's certainly clever," Jonathan added. "It would have been nice to have figured out that little puzzle when we were pages."

**After an evening of staff practice with Neal, she knew she had used the day well, and went to bed content.**

**Monday came soon enough. By nightfall she was exhausted and wishing for another Sunday. Then Cleon, grinning hugely, caught her after supper and asked her to fetch some books from the Mithran's library, in a separate wing of the palace. **

Alanna narrowed her eyes. "He's starting to annoy me," she said.

**She could see he was waiting for her to refuse so he could say she thought herself better than the other first-years. With a sigh, she trotted off to do as she was bid. **

**Tuesday was more of the same. Only her sparrows' reaction to her arm-strengthening exercises – they lined up on her windowsill like spectators at a tournament – made Kel smile that day. **

Daine giggled.

**At tilting practice later that morning she managed to hit Peachblossom's head and the quintain dummy, but not the target shield. **

Daine winced in sympathy for Peachblossom and Kel.

**The laughter of pages and onlookers rang in her ears, but she kept her feelings hidden. By the time she rode Peachblossom back to the stable in the wake of the other pages, she wanted to crawl into a dark corner and die.**

Alanna frowned, It really shouldn't be this hard, she insisted to herself.

**Kel was the last to finish grooming her mount and the last to finish looking after her tack. By the time she tended her weapons, the other pages had gone; she had to hurry if she was to bathe before lunch. Working in haste, she dropped her lance. It clattered across the stable floor, collecting dirt along its freshly oiled length. **

Raoul groaned.

**As it rolled, a small button of wood fell away, revealing a dark hole.**

"Oh no," Raoul sighed. "That's why you don't rush."

**Kel stared at the spot, wanting to cry. Now she would have to polish the lance again and find some way to fill the gap. **

Alanna sighed in sympathy.

**Bending down, she picked up the piece that had fallen out. It wasn't a splintered chuck, but a perfectly cut plug two inches wide. The sides were sawed clean, tapering inward.**

"Wait…what?" Alanna frowned in confusion.

**That's odd, she thought. Picking up the lance, she looked for the hole left by the missing piece. It was stark against the light brown of the wood because there was something black at its bottom.**

Wyldon narrowed his eyes, that doesn't sound good.

**Kel stuck her little finger inside and scraped the dark substance. Inspecting the stuff under her nail, she realized it was lead.**

"What?" Jonathan shouted in alarm. "First-year pages shouldn't have lead in their lances! I think that was a little extreme Wyldon."

"You're right, your majesty," Wyldon said leaning forward suspiciously. "They're not supposed to have lead in their lances."

**Now she went over the entire lance, not with her callused fingertips but with the more sensitive pads of her fingers. There were five more plugs spaced along the length of the wood. She pried them out; each hid a hollow filled with lead. They were placed so that no part of the staff was out of balance with the rest. It had been cleverly done, the plugs replaced to match the grain of the lance and the whole polished until the cuts were nearly invisible.**

The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

**Kel lifted the other pages' lances. All weighed much less than her own.**

The room erupted in chaos. The women were shouting in outrage while their husbands were trying to restrain and reassure them, except for Buri and Raoul where the reverse was true. Kitten's scales had turned scarlet as she rocked back and forth kneading her claws into the cushion beneath her all while muttering angrily to herself. Wyldon's face was doing an excellent imitation of Kit's color as he also rocked back and forth while muttering angrily to himself. Gary attempted to help George placate his furious wife only to have Anders join her side. This resulted in Gary having to turn his efforts to calming Kel's big brother. Raoul and Alanna had escaped their spouse's grasp and were half-way to the door when a sharp whistle spilt the air. Everyone froze and turned to Myles who was looking at them all amused.

"Did I know you could do that?" Alanna asked her adoptive father.

Myles smiled. "I believe you are all missing one very important fact," he remarked.

When no one responded he sighed patiently. "Kel has already mastered the lance," he reminded them. "Which means, as eager as you all are to teach the vagrant who played this prank a lesson, whom I might also mention you do not know the identity of, she has already dealt with it. If we could resume the story, perhaps we shall find out how as well as who."

The ladies and Raoul grumbled and resumed their seats. The husbands and Buri sighed in relief. Wyldon and Kit remained matching shades of scarlet but the muttering and rocking stopped. Numair picked up the book and with one more glance at Daine to make sure she didn't jump up again, he continued.

**Fury pounded at her temples and behind her eyes. Was this what Cleon had meant when he'd said to run while she still had a chance? **

"I should have known!" Alanna cried. "I never _did_ like him."

"I doubt it was Cleon," Anders interjected. "I've met him at Mindelan and this really isn't his style."

**She pictured the big redhead and sighed. No. He was the kind who would shove someone into a puddle. This sort of trickery would be too much work for Cleon.**

Alanna grunted. Still, he could lay off that _stupid_ tradition.

**Getting her lance, Kel stuck the first plug back into its socket. She began to oil and polish the wood anew, thinking. Had Neal known about this? **

Alanna shook her head, her ex-squire would _NEVER _do that to his best friend.

**She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him touch her lance. No, he hadn't, nor had Wyldon, she remembered. Joren had been the only one to handle it before it got to Kel. Custom dictated that Kel alone would touch it once it was hers.**

Alanna, Thayet, Daine, and Raoul were all very colorful when describing just what they thought of Joren. Even Wyldon was nodding his head in agreement.

**Kel was sure that Joren wouldn't be the only one who knew. The joke was too good to keep to himself. He would have needed a palace carpenter, too. None of the pages would have been able to do the kind of work the trick lance required. Enough warriors trained with weighted arms that a carpenter would think nothing of putting lead into a practice lance.**

"That's true," Jonathan offered. "They wouldn't have suspected a thing." It still didn't stop a low growl from Alanna and Raoul.

**Kel thought about it through her bath, and took her time scrubbing. Normally she rushed so no one had to wait long to eat, but today she did not feel kindly toward her fellow pages. For once she would have a proper wash and they could listen to their growling bellies for a while. If extra work was the price she paid to remind them that she could disrupt their lives, too, she would pay it gladly.**

"Good for her!" said Thayet. "I hope it was a nice _long_ wash."

**When Kel reached the mess hall, the waiting pages and squires growled. She put on her most Yamani-Lump expression and got her food. She knew it infuriated those who disliked her when she appeared not to care if they even existed. On a day like today when, fairly or unfairly, she disliked most of the pages, she positively enjoyed letting them think she cared for their opinions not one whit.**

"Ha!" Alanna exclaimed. "Serves them right!"

"They weren't all in on it," Jonathan tried.

"Doesn't matter," insisted Daine. "Most of them have been horrible to her, or have ignored that others have treated her horribly. I say it serves them all right!"

"**A word after lunch, probationer," Wyldon called as she looked around for Neal.**

**Kel bowed to him, found Neal, and took her seat. Wyldon's prayer, to "perform our duties quickly and promptly," did not even make her twitch. Neither did his after-lunch order to report to the armory on Sunday for two bells' worth of labor. She bowed politely to the training master in reply, and ran to catch up with her friends.**

"You know," said Wyldon thoughtfully, "I thought she looked a little smug. Not that I blame her."

"**Are you all right?" Prince Roald wanted to know as they walked to their afternoon classes. "You're being quiet even for you."**

**Kel glanced up. Both Roald and Neal were looking at her. She was certain that Neal didn't know about the lance, but what about the prince? He was one of Joren's yearmates. Despite his joining her and Neal from time to time, she wasn't sure what he thought of her.**

"Oh he would never approve of that!" Thayet exclaimed. "Besides, I happen to know for a fact that he thinks very highly of you."

**Finally she decided that Roald didn't know. Joren had begun in the same year as the prince, but Roald, who was careful to eat with all of the pages so no one felt jealous, spent the least amount of time with Joren and his cronies.**

"Good for him," Thayet added. "Those boys were bad news."

**Should she tell them? She knew that Neal was her friend and she thought the prince might be.**

"Yes, tell them. Then you can come up with a plan to get them all back together," Raoul said excitedly.

**No. Yamanis did not whine about what was fair or unfair, and she was too much a Yamani still. She would not let anyone think she could not handle whatever got dished out to her.**

"Oh come on!" Gary shouted. "I'm sure that Neal boy could help you come up with some great pranks."

**Kel shook her head in answer to the prince's query. "I haven't anything to say."**

"**Dear girl, we noticed," drawled Neal in his most scholarly-elegant way.**

**Kel ignored him and returned to her complicated thoughts. What if she kept the lance? If she mastered it, the bigger lances of the knights would be easy to handle.**

"Well that plan certainly seemed to have worked out rather well," Myles smiled.

**The afternoon passed. Kel reported to classes as usual. She also studied each of her fellow pages, trying to guess which of them had been in on Joren's trick.**

**At supper, she ate lightly. Given her plans for the evening, a full stomach was a bad idea. **

"Uh, plans?" Gary asked. "These don't sound like very good plans."

**Going straight to her room, she changed from her dress to practice clothes as the boys returned to their rooms to collect their study materials. When Neal rapped on her door, she pretended she wasn't in until he went away.**

"Why would she do that?" Alanna demanded.

**Finally no more steps sounded in the pages' wing. Kel left her room to walk the corridors. She made no sound in her soft leather slippers, ghosting along as she had been taught in the Islands, listening hard.**

"Where is she going? What is she doing?" Alanna asked.

"Lass, if we have a little patience, I think we will find out." George answered. Alanna grumbled but quieted down.

**Passing the pages' main library, she heard the slam of a heavy book striking the floor. "Pick that up for me, will you, Merric?" The voice was Joren's.**

**Kel stopped outside the open door. Her heart drummed in her chest.**

"She isn't planning on doing what I think she's planning on doing is she?" Numair asked. "She's crazy if she is."

"**Yessir, Page Joren," she heard Merric say dully. Peeking through the crack in the door, Kel saw Merric place a fat volume on the table next to the blond page.**

**As he did, Zahir shoved another heavy book off the table. "Pick it up," said Vinson of Genlith, cackling with mirth. "Can't have books on the floor."**

Jonathan narrowed his eyes. "I'm going to have to have a _serious_ talk with my former squire. Especially if he was in on that earlier prank."

**Merric stared at the older boys with resentment, then got the book.**

**Joren immediately pushed his volume off the table. As Merric stared at him. Joren then lifted a stack of smaller books with a taunting smile. His eyes never left Merric's as he let them drop one by one onto the floor.**

"I _never_ would have approved of this behavior," Wyldon growled.

"I hope she pounds him," Daine said quietly.

**Kel's stomach tightened. She took a deep breath and walked into the library.**

"Go get him," Alanna whispered fiercely.

"**This is wrong," she said, halting in front of the blond page.**

"**Oh, look – it's the Lump." On the other side of the table Vinson got to his feet. "Do you want trouble, probationer?" he asked grinning. "We'd just **_**loooove**_** to give it to you."**

Thayet groaned. "Enough with that title!" she exclaimed. "He's the one who should be on probation!"

"**No, I don't want it," Kel replied. She kept her eyes on Joren. The leader of a gang was always the one to watch. The others would take their cues from him. **

"Smart lass," George grinned.

"**What I want is for you to stop pushing the first-years around."**

**Joren stared at her, his blue eyes bright. "I see," he said in a thoughtful tone. "We haven't gotten rid of you yet, so you think you're accepted. Merric, pick up those books."**

"**Don't, Merric," Kel said, still watching Joren.**

"**It's custom," the redheaded boy muttered.**

"_This_ is not the custom," Anders growled. At the moment, he was equal parts nervous for Kel, and fiercely proud of her.

"**Not like this, it's not," replied Kel. "Us fetching and carrying gloves and armor polish, that's enough. Forcing people to mop with their clothes and pick up things dropped on purpose has nothing to do with being a page."**

"I couldn't agree more," Wyldon nodded.

**Joren laughed softly, shaking his head. "Oh, this is too much," he said at last. "The Yamani Lump – our very temporary annoyance – will school us in proper behavior."**

"Not as temporary as you think**" **Buri retorted.

"**I shouldn't have to," Kel told him. "You should know how a true knight behaves."**

"He should, but it appears he doesn't," Myles frowned. "Mithros, he's a nasty one."

**A hand clamped around the back of her neck: Zahir's. She hadn't even heard him get out of his chair.**

"Uh oh," Buri whispered.

"**Shall I take the Lump away?" the Bazhir inquired of Joren.**

**Gripping Zahir's index finger, Kel jammed her thumbnail into the base of Zahir's own nail. The experience, she knew very well, was a painful one.**

Alanna and Daine cheered. "I'll have to remember that one," Buri grinned.

"Me too," Thayet grinned back.

**He yelped and let go. Joren lunged for her.**

**She stepped back, ducking under Zahir's frantic punch. Instead, the Bazhir hit Joren. **

"Ha! Nice one!" George exclaimed. The others all laughed at Joren's expense.

**Kel backed up to reach the open center of the library. Merric, to her relief, had fled. She was glad not to have to worry about him.**

"Coward," Alanna accused.

"Wimp," Daine agreed.

**Zahir was cursing and coddling his fist; his punch had connected solidly with Joren's skull. Joren rubbed the spot where his friend had struck as he walked toward Kel. He was crimson with rage. Vinson was nowhere to be seen.**

"That's not good," Raoul murmured.

**Something clattered behind Kel. In spite of herself, she looked. Vinson had fallen over a footstool as he emerged from the shelves at her rear.**

"Idiot," Buri mumbled.

**She turned back quickly. Joren was leaping straight at her.**

**Kel's Yamani training took over. She grabbed Joren's tunic and turned, kneeling as she did. He went flying over her shoulder, just as the Yamani ladies had done during their practices together. The ladies, however, did not hit a long study table on their bellies, sliding along its polished length to crash headfirst into a bookshelf.**

Everyone burst into laughter at that. "Oh," Daine exclaimed wiping tears from her eyes, "I would have _loooved_ to see that!"

**A foot slammed into her back between her shoulder blades. Zahir had recovered. **

"Ouch," Jonathan winced.

**Kel rolled forward as she went down, to fetch up against the legs of the table she'd just polished with Joren. Zahir moved in to kick her; she seized his booted foot and twisted, growling with effort. Off balance he stumbled and fell. Kel hurled a nearby stool at him. He rolled, covering his head with his arms.**

Everyone cheered again. "She's holding her own," Raoul said proudly.

**Then Vinson gripped her ankles, dragging her forward. Kel sat up and grabbed his hands. Someone grasped her hair from behind and yanked her to the floor again. **

"Oh, that's gotta hurt," Daine winced, holding her head.

**Ignoring the pain as the hair-puller kept his grip, Kel rolled away from a punch. She clung to his wrists to keep him from yanking out a chunk of hair. The roll twisted her out of Vinson's hold on her legs. She kicked out, slamming her feet into Vinson's belly. **

"Yes, I hope he threw up," Buri cheered.

**That hand in her hair yanked, dragging her into the middle of the floor. Her grim-faced captor was Joren. **

**Kel felt his wrist and dug her thumbnails into the soft flesh between the bones. He cursed and let go.**

Thayet smirked. Let that teach him not to drag a girl around by her hair.

**Lunging to her feet, Kel ran into Zahir. Grinning, the Bazhir punched her in the stomach. When her scant supper came up, she made sure he got most of it. **

"That's a good girl," Raoul nodded.

**Another solid blow from Joren connected with her back, spinning her around. His second punch hit her face just as Vinson grabbed her.**

**Next time, she thought fiercely, hooking Joren's leg with her foot and yanking, next time I'll make sure I've got my back to the wall!**

"Next time!" Anders cried. "I barely managed to make it through this one!"

Raoul clapped him on the back. "She'll live, I'm sure you'll manage."

**Vinson was the last of the older pages to walk out of Lord Wyldon's study. Through the open door Kel heard the training master call, "Send her in."**

"**Here, milord," announced the man who waited on Lord Wyldon in the evenings. Holding the door as Kel passed, he winked in encouragement.**

Buri pouted that she didn't have his name to add to the list.

**Kel halted in front of Lord Wyldon's desk as the door closed. The training master inspected her and shook his head. Kel knew she looked dreadful. From her past experience she knew she had a black eye and a puffy lip. He nose was probably broken. A trickling on her cheeks told her the splits in both eyebrows were bleeding.**

George whistled, impressed. Wyldon just shook his head as he remembered just how bad she had looked. He was certain that she had had enough after that.

"**Blot that," Wyldon ordered, and thrust his handkerchief across his desk. Kel stared as if he had offered a foreign object, then reached for it stiffly. Her left arm hurt. The skin on her knuckles was torn and bleeding on both hands.**

Daine winced.

"**Would you care to explain?" Wyldon picked up a large cup and sipped from it. **

"**Sir?" she asked thickly.**

"**How were you injured? As I recall, you were in one piece earlier tonight."**

**She tried to breathe through her nose, and winced. "I fell down, Lord Wyldon," she said carefully. Lifting the handkerchief from her cut, she examined it with her good eye, and pressed the clean linen to the split in the other brow.**

Alanna, Raoul, Jonathan, Gary, and Anders all chuckled.

Wyldon rolled his eyes. "Of course you did," he muttered.

"_**What**_** did you say, probationer?"**

**His tone made her stiffen. She tried to stand tall and put her hands behind her back, as they were expected to when questioned. The left arm only went so far before pain made her dizzy.**

"**Never mind that," snapped Wyldon. "Answer me."**

"Honestly, I don't know why she was even trying," Wyldon sighed.

"**I fell," she replied evenly. At least she didn't have to worry about making up a lie, when a time-honored custom had already supplied her with one.**

**Wyldon fiddled with his tea mug. "Come, come, girl. You were in a fight. Name those you fought with."**

"**Begging your pardon, my lord, but there was no fight," she told him. "I fell down."**

"**You fought with Joren, Zahir, and Vinson," Wyldon reminded her.**

"**Did they say that?" asked Kel, her face as blank as any true-born Yamani's. "How strange. **_**I **_**fell down."**

Everyone laughed at that.

**Wyldon stared. "I imagine you have now come to your senses and wish to go home. At this time of year that will be difficult –"**

**Surprised enough to forget her manners, she interrupted him. "No, sir."**

"**It will not be difficult? For your information, it has been snowing in the north over the past two weeks. It will snow here tonight." Wyldon rubbed his healing arm.**

"**No, sir," Kel repeated firmly. "I don't want to go home. Your lordship."**

Alanna, Raoul, and Anders smirked proudly.

"**You do not want to go home." If she hadn't believed he could never be startled, she might have thought that he was now. He didn't normally repeat simple ideas.**

"Oh you startled me alright," Wyldon confirmed.

"**I don't believe falling down is an offense for which I can be expelled," she said, trying to speak clearly. "I still have the rest of the year to prove myself."**

"Good girl," Raoul beamed.

**Wyldon tapped his fingers on his desk. "You have the armory Sunday afternoons until April," he said at last. "And an essay each week on the improper uses of combat training. Now you'd better see a palace healer. That nose looks broken. Dismissed."**

**Kel bowed stiffly, then remembered something. She held out his handkerchief. **

"**Have it washed and returned to me," Wyldon ordered.**

"**Very good, my lord," she replied, and left. Neal would tell her where the healers saw patients.**

Alanna cackled evilly. "Oh I would have loved to have seen his reaction to her showing up looking like that!"

**Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm's healers, was a tall, weary-looking man. A dark gray over-robe protected the black velvet tunic and hose he wore in mourning for the two sons he had lost. His eyes were a darker green than Neal's, set deep under straight brows. There was a red tint to his brown hair that was absent in his son's, but they had the same nose and the same direct gaze. While Neal paced, Baird rested big hands on Kel's shoulders. She saw his magic as emerald-colored light around his hands, and she felt it as a cool tide through her body. Her stiffness eased; the edge came off her aches. Kel had been beaten up before, but never so thoroughly; it shamed her to feel so happy at the easing of pain. The warriors at the imperial court had always insisted they did not even pay attention to pain when they had it.**

"She's really tough on herself isn't she?" Thayet murmured with a hint of admiration in her tone.

**Baird let go of her and rubbed his hands. "I am impressed, young lady," he told her with a wry smile. "You have been royally pounded."**

**Kel smiled at him. "You should see the other fellows."**

"**There!" cried Neal, holding up his hands. "You see what I have to deal with!"**

Daine giggled. "Poor Neal"

"**You may have noticed my son has an endless capacity for drama," Baird told Kel.**

"I think the whole court noticed," Wyldon remarked dryly.

**She couldn't help it: she grinned, and winced as her split lip opened.**

"**Ah," said the healer duke, "we can't have this." He touched an icy finger to Kel's lip. The hurt vanished. Next he touched the cuts in her eyebrows and on her hands' they went cold, then painless. The swellings on her knuckles shrank. Scraped places scabbed, as if Duke Baird had put three days' worth of healing into her.**

"**So much for chivalrous ideals, eh?" Neal demanded. "Three pages in their third year of training jump a first-year – a first-**_**season**_** page –"**

"**I started it," Kel informed her friend.**

"**Tell me another," he snapped.**

"**I did, on my honor." Kel looked at Neal's father. "I think Lord Wyldon just wanted my nose seen to, your grace. Not the rest."**

"Oh I don't mind," Wyldon said waving his hands. "I was expecting Baird to do as he pleased anyway."

"**Since he sent you without written instructions, I may exercise my judgment," Baird told her. **

Wyldon snorted. "He wouldn't have paid any attention to my written instructions anyway."

"**I will indeed see to your nose. You've also pulled muscles in your left side – I can mend that and reduce the swelling around your eye. It will not do if you were to miss training because you could not see. I can also ease that headache."**

"**What possessed you?" demanded Neal. He seemed as vexed by this matter-of-fact discussion as by Kel's story. "Why in the name of all the gods in all the Eastern and Southern Lands would you start a fight with them?"**

**Kel sighed. She wasn't about to tell how Merric had been shamed. "I didn't like the shape of Joren's nose"**

Alanna threw back her head and laughed hard.

**Neal stared at her, eyes bulging. Finally he said, "If you meant to impress the Stump, you wasted your time. Don't you realize he'll never let you stay?"**

"Well, I guess you don't know me as well as you think," Wyldon sniffed.

**Kel looked down. "He could change his mind," she insisted. "You always think the worst of him."**

Wyldon chuckled.

"**I **_**what?**_**" Neal began to produce a series of outraged noises that included squawks and whistling inhaled breaths. He sounded like one of her young nephews having a tantrum, not like a fifteen-year-old who'd been raised at court and at the university.**

Everyone was laughing at the exchanged now.

"**If you cannot be quiet while I work," his father told him patiently, "go into the waiting room."**

**Neal marched out. A moment later, they heard him arguing with himself. **

Daine giggled.

**Duke Baird closed the examining room door and placed his hands on either side of Keladry's head. "This may sting a bit," he warned.**

"**Sting" was not the word Kel would have used to describe the healing of her broken nose. The flesh around it moved; cartilage grated. Her sinuses and teeth ached sharply, then throbbed. The pain stopped abruptly. She could breathe again.**

"Ow!" Thayet rubbed her nose. "Remind me to make sure I never break my nose."

**She could also see from both eyes. The ache in her left side was fading. A moment later, Duke Baird stepped away from her.**

"**Beautiful," he said with approval. "You're quite strong, you know. I couldn't have done nearly so much if you weren't in the pink of health to begin with. You didn't fight me, either. You made it easy."**

"**My mother cracked us on the head with her fan when we fought healers," Kel admitted. "We all decided it was better to let them do their work."**

"Her mother is a smart woman," Alanna nodded in approval.

"**The Ilane of Seabeth and Seajen I used to dance with was a most forthright young lady," Baird admitted, smiling. "I am glad to see that she still is."**

**Now it was Kel's turn to gape. Her mother used to dance? With men who were not her father?**

Everyone laughed again.

"**I hope you will remember me to her when you next write." Baird helped her to slide off his examining table.**

"**Yes, sir. I mean, yes, your grace," Kel said, fumbling the proper words for a man of his rank.**

**Baird opened the door to his waiting room. Neal stood in the middle of it, hands on hips. "I've decided," Neal announced. "She's insane. The entire palace is insane."**

"The pot calling the kettle black," Alanna muttered.

**His father lifted reddish-brown eyebrows. "Does this mean that you have come to your senses and will return to the university?" he asked mildly.**

**Neal choked, glared at his father, and stalked out of the room.**

It took a few minutes for everyone to stop laughing before Numair could continue.

"**I didn't think so," Baird remarked softly. "Keladry, I would like to say I hope we only meet socially in the future. Somehow, I don't think that will be the case."**

"Don't encourage her," Wyldon groaned.

**Kel grinned at him. "You're probably right, your grace."**

Raoul chuckled.

"**Don't mind my boy. He gets…overenthusiastic, but he has a good heart."**

"**I know **_**that**_**," Kel reassured the duke, and yawned.**

"**To bed," the healer ordered. "You need the sleep."**

**Kel bowed, covering another yawn, and trotted to catch up with Neal.**

"As ironic as this sounds, I think things are starting to get better," Daine giggled. "At least she seems to be in a better mood."

Anders nodded. "She is," he confirmed. "But I wish she would stay away from those boys now, even though I get the feeling that this won't be the case."

"No, it isn't," Wyldon agreed. "This is only the beginning."

"Well hello," Numair said looking down at the black blob with a gold streak in it that seemed to be trying to sneak the book from him.

"Nuts," the blob muttered in a squeaky voice.

"Gold-streak!" Daine exclaimed excitedly. "How have you been?"

The darking drew itself up to address the wildmage. "Dragonlands were boring. Came to visit," it explained. "Not very good at being sneaky though," it muttered to itself.

Numair patted Gold-streak's head affectionately. "It will take a lot more practice to be sneaky with me. Sleight-of-hand is something of a hobby of mine." Gold-streak seemed to perk up at that.

A knock at the door sounded. Raoul answered it to find servants baring trays of food. "I figured we might be at this for a while so I asked the servants to deliver lunch to my quarters," Raoul explained to everyone.

"Good idea, Raoul," said Jon. "I think now would be a good time to take a break and have something to eat.


	9. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer:__ First and foremost, I do not own any of the wonderful characters in this story. The Tortallan universe and everything and everyone in it belongs to Tamora Pierce. Secondly, because this is a story about the characters in the story, reading the story, everything in __**bold**__ is a direct quote from First Test by Tamora Pierce._

* * *

_A/N: Ok, first of all, let me apologize to everyone who has been waiting for the next chapter for so long! I am soooooooooooo sorry! Things have been kinda crazy for me the last month and a half. I solemnly swear that I will never let it happen again! _

_Secondly, thank you to everyone who has left reviews and messages for me! You have inspired me not to give up. I love to hear from you all. Sorry if I haven't responded to your messages yet. I haven't been on my fanfiction account for awhile. I shall answer you all as quickly as I can!_

_Thirdly, I am not now, nor do I ever intend to abandon this little story of mine. Unless people start telling me its crap. No sense in writing it if no one's enjoying it._

_And finally, several of you have been asking for Kel to make an appearance in this story. All I can tell you is that I have plans for her and her friends and all shall be revealed eventually. Please stay tuned and you will find out!_

_NOW! I think you have all waited long enough, don't you agree! ;)_

* * *

_Previously, on Reading POTS:_

"_As ironic as this sounds, I think things are starting to get better," Daine giggled. "At least she seems to be in a better mood."_

_Anders nodded. "She is," he confirmed. "But I wish she would stay away from those boys now, even though I get the feeling that this won't be the case."_

"_No, it isn't," Wyldon agreed. "This is only the beginning."_

"_Well hello," Numair said looking down at the black blob with a gold streak in it that seemed to be trying to sneak the book from him._

"_Nuts," the blob muttered in a squeaky voice._

"_Gold-streak!" Daine exclaimed excitedly. "How have you been?" _

_The darking drew itself up to address the wildmage. "Dragonlands were boring. Came to visit," it explained. "Not very good at being sneaky though," it muttered to itself._

_Numair patted Gold-streak's head affectionately. "It will take a lot more practice to be sneaky with me. Sleight-of-hand is something of a hobby of mine." Gold-streak seemed to perk up at that. _

_A knock at the door sounded. Raoul answered it to find servants baring trays of food. "I figured we might be at this for a while so I asked the servants to deliver lunch to my quarters," Raoul explained to everyone. _

"_Good idea, Raoul," said Jon. "I think now would be a good time to take a break and have something to eat._

* * *

They ate and chattered for a bit, but everyone was eager to get back to the book. Daine picked it up off the table. "If no one minds, I'd like to read next," she said. Everyone settled in, ready for her to begin.

**Chapter 8, Winter**

**The next morning Kel opened her eyes to discover it was not yet dawn. She moaned. Once, just **_**once**_**, it would have been nice to sleep through the bell to Gower's knock on her door. Even with a banked fire her room was icy, a solid argument for staying abed until the last possible moment. **

"I agree," Alanna nodded. "There's absolutely no reason for her to get up so early."

"You just don't like the cold," Jon accused.

"What's wrong with that?" demanded Alanna. "And besides, who _likes_the cold?"

**She probably shouldn't do her morning exercises until tomorrow or the next day. Even with Duke Baird's treatment, she ached all –**

**Several somethings hopped on her chest, interrupting her thoughts. Kel looked down.**

**Thirteen sparrows, the entire courtyard flock, stood on the coverlet. Crown hopped up the distance from Kel's navel to somewhere below her chin, where Kel lost sight of her. She closed her eyes, waiting for the gentle peck.**

**Instead the quick gait that circled her cheek stopped beside her ear. "PEEP!"**

Everyone laughed.

**Kel sat up, startling the birds into flight. They perched on the headboard, chattering at her.**

"**Wonderful," she said, throwing off the covers. "So much for a little extra sleep." Looking up, she saw one of the small shutters was open. No wonder the room was so cold. She hobbled stiffly to the window, mumbling, "How can a tiny bird produce such a loud noise?"**

Daine giggled, "You'd be surprised," she mused.

**She opened the bottom shutters. Outside, the predawn world was white. Over a foot of snow had fallen in the courtyard. More continued to fall in a steady, businesslike way. It muffled all sound, making Kel feel as if she and the birds were wrapped in a thick down comforter.**

"That paints a pretty picture," Thayet murmured.

"**I see why you came in," she said, turning to look at her guests. They had taken advantage of her departure to huddle in the warm hollow she'd left in her mattress. **

"I can see why they all wanted her up," Myles chuckled.

**Kel, grinned, and went to poke up the fire. Once she had it going, she lit a branch of candles and carried them into her dressing room. Overhead the great bell called everyone to another day's work.**

**With no hearth, the dressing room was icy. Kel danced on the bare stone flags, teeth chattering as she stripped off her nightgown. A colorful sight awaited her: fading yellow-purple bruises spread over her left side and mottled her legs. A bigger, red-purple bruise was just surfacing on her belly.**

Anders raised an eyebrow. "Impressive," he commented. "I don't think she's ever been quite that colorful."

**Kel whistled, impressed in spite of herself. She had to have been in one or two worse fights than this, although they slipped her mind at the moment. **

"No actually, I'm pretty sure you haven't," Anders argued.

**The marks vanished under her clothes as she drew on her undertunic and scarlet wool hose. By that point she was shivering so badly that it was all she could do to feed the laces through the holes in the long garments. She was securing the hose to her undertunic when she heard a rap on her door.**

"**Just a moment," she called, grabbing a robe. Wishing the servants could simply enter her room and knowing the boys would destroy her things if she had the special locks removed, she ran to open the door. Gower took two steps past her with his tray, then turned to stare.**

"**Sunrise come early today, miss?"**

"Huh?" Alanna asked, confused.

**Kel blinked at him. "What?"**

**The man nodded to her face. "Looks like the sun's about to come up in your eye. Nice color."**

Alanna blinked. "Did he just make a joke?" she asked in disbelief.

"I think so," George chuckled.

"**Thank you, I think."**

**He put down the tray and saw the birds perched close to the fire. "Time was a man didn't have to deal with wild animals in the palace," he commented.**

Daine blushed.

"**They aren't wild, exactly," she protested as he left the room, closing the door.**

**The sparrows cheeped. Kel emptied a cup of the seed she had begged from the stables weeks before onto her desk. Dumping her collection of colored rocks from their shallow dish, she filled it with water and put it down for the birds. **

Kitten chirped his approval.

**That done, she hurried to wash and finish dressing. Looking at her face in the mirror, she saw what Gower had meant: the swelling was gone, but she had brightly colored bruises around one eye and her other eyebrow and on one cheekbone. Kel shook her head and left her room. **

**Turning around after she locked up, she nearly tripped over Merric. He shoved her. "I didn't ask you to come bullocking in!" he yelled. "I don't need you to defend me!"**

"Are you serious?" Thayet exclaimed.

"What's his problem?" Gary wanted to know.

The others all frowned.

**Kel held up her hands and stepped back. "I didn't do it for you," she told him.**

"She didn't?" Raoul asked, confused.

"**Now they'll give me all kinds of grief, saying I got a **_**girl **_**to – hunh?"**

**Kel sighed. "I didn't do it for you, all right? I wanted to pick a fight with them and you were there, that's all."**

Wait . . . what?" Jonathan asked.

**The noise was drawing other pages out of their rooms.**

"**Just leave me alone!" Merric yelled, uncomfortably aware of their audience. He punched Kel in the left arm, then the right as if daring her to hit back.**

Buri sighed, annoyed. "Was that really necessary?"

**The blows hurt, but she let him have them. His pride was sore; she understood that. Her parents had explained it, the first few times that someone she had tried to help got angry with her. She wished Merric had tried to hit his tormentors as well. He wouldn't be so angry if he'd gotten in a punch or two of his own last night.**

Wyldon nodded, even though he didn't approve of the fighting that took place throughout their years as pages, he had to admit that she had a point. If Merric didn't want a girl to save him he should have done something about it himself. He was beginning to understand her reasons for all those fights.

"**Just because you're a stupid probationer **_**girl**_** doesn't mean you can ignore custom like that, either!" Merric informed her.**

"It's not like the custom is that old," Jonathan objected. "It wasn't around when we were pages."

"That's because we wouldn't have agreed to such a _stupid_ custom!" Alanna insisted.

**Kel sighed again. She had been patient enough – she wanted her breakfast. "Like I said, it had nothing to do with you." Tucking her hands into her belt, she marched down the hall. The other boys gathered around Merric. She could hear them asking him what had happened.**

**She wondered what he would say. Not your problem, she told herself, and picked up her pace. She was **_**hungry.**_

"I always get hungry after a healing too," Daine grinned.

**Neal was not far behind her. "Ungrateful little swine," he muttered as he sat across from Kel.**

"I agree with Neal," Anders muttered.

**She looked up from spooning honey onto her porridge. Never had breakfast looked so good. Healings always made her hungry. "Me?"**

"**No, Merric."**

**Kel looked down. "Oh. You heard."**

"**My room isn't that far from yours. He doesn't have to be your slave the rest of his life, but a little thanks –"**

"**And if it was you?" Kel asked, buttering a scone.**

**Neal blinked at her.**

"**Would you have thanked me?" She bit into her scone.**

"**Well, I- I-"**

"Oh, I think I get it now," said Anders.

**Kel swallowed. It's bad enough Joren and his pack shamed him. Me seeing it shamed him more. Me **_**doing**_** something about it…" She dug into her porridge, letting Neal think it over.**

"I guess I can see it," Thayet sighed. "Still, that was just stupid."

**As she ate, she looked for Joren, Zahir, and Vinson. Their appearance was much more colorful than hers. Since they hadn't broken anything, they had not been sent to a healer. Not bad work, for a first-year, she thought, careful to keep her face straight.**

"Not bad at all," Wyldon chuckled. "I remember, I was sure she had help from someone. It was hard to believe she'd managed to do all that damage by herself."

"That's our Kel," Raoul smiled. "She's always a lot tougher than everyone expects."

"Well it's fair foolish to think otherwise," Alanna huffed.

**Neal was still thinking about what Kel had said when Salma found them. "Lord Wyldon sent me to remind you to wait on his table the next three nights," she informed Kel. "I'll have a clean uniform ready after your classes. Make sure you reach the mess before he does."**

**Kel nodded. Every other page had gone through the same routine.**

**Salma touched her bruised eye. "Nice sunrise," she commented, and smiled.**

"Has she been talking to Gower?" Alanna wanted to know. "Why is everyone referring to her black eye as a sunrise?"

"It just seemed to have that kind of shading going on," Myles explained smiling.

**Kel grinned back. "That's another thing," grumbled Neal. "You're **_**happy**_** about that fight."**

**Kel buttered another scone. "Yes."**

"**Great griffins, why? Do you **_**like**_** getting hurt?"**

**She put her butter knife down. "Don't you ever get tired of asking questions?"**

Everyone laughed while Alanna groaned. "Unfortunately not," she said. "You have to threaten him with bodily harm to get him to shut up, and even that doesn't always work."

"**Never. They're mother's milk to me. Answer, please."**

"See what I mean," Alanna exclaimed.

**Kel toyed with her scone. She usually didn't like to explain herself, but she respected Neal. "Warriors get hut. You don't have to like it, just live with it. And last night I got tired of thinking and worrying myself sick. I knew what had to be done, and I did it." She sighed happily. "I love it when that happens."**

Wyldon shook his head. "Has she always been like that?" he asked Anders.

Anders laughed. "Pretty much," he replied.

**Before the pages left the mess hall, Lord Wyldon made an announcement. As long as the snow continued to fall, Shang combat, weapons practice, and archery would be held at the indoor practice courts.**

**Kel almost ran into Cleon as she headed out of the mess. He'd planted himself squarely in her path. She halted, staring at him with exasperation.**

"**Good morning, teardrop of my heart," he greeted her.**

Daine snorted. "What exactly is a teardrop of a heart supposed to be?" she wanted to know.

"Apparently, it would be Kel," Buri answered drily.

**Kel sighed, her shoulders drooping. He wasn't a bully like Joren. Last night had been about bullies, not about a silly custom. "What is it this time?"**

**Cleon blinked. He'd expected a refusal. He recovered quickly. "My quiver, if you would, my pearl. I took it to my room to sharpen the arrowheads, and of course I will require it. Return soon to my side, or I will pine."**

**He'll pine and I'm a holly bush, she though with grim good humor, trotting back to the pages' wing.**

Everyone laughed. "I never realized she had a good sense of humor," Jonathan said. "She always seemed so serious to me."

**At the end of archery practice, Lord Wyldon told them that riding class was canceled. "This is true only during storms," he explained as they put away their bows. "If it is just a matter of snow on the ground, you train outdoors."**

**Someone groaned.**

**Wyldon bore down on the groaner, the first-year page named Quinden. **

"I would have hated to be him," Anders muttered.

"It wasn't very smart of him to do that in the training masters' presence," Gary pointed out. "It's like he was asking for it."

"**Do you think spidrens sit indoors in the winter?" he rapped out. "They've got nice furry coats. They don't care if it's freezing. Killer centaurs and killer unicorns hate drifts, but they'll attack in shallow snow. Get used to fighting in it." He turned to include the rest of the pages in his lecture. "Once a knight could take his ease in winter. Pirates, bandits, Scanrans, and Carthakis stayed home. We practiced our snow hunting skills, being polite to ladies, and polishing our armor. Winter was our easy season.**

Alanna sighed with longing. "I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss those winters."

"Only because you don't like being out in the cold," Raoul grumbled. "Personally, I prefer the cold to all those gods-curst parties, and social events."

"Yes, we all know," Jonathan glared.

"**These immortals changed everything," he went on. "Many are out and about in all but the worst weather, which means we come out, too."**

"**But most of them returned to the Divine Realms this summer," argued a third-year. "Didn't they?"**

"**There are hundreds still in Tortall," Wyldon said grimly. "And hundreds more, once they breed. Only the monsters that came after Midwinter Festival last year were returned to the Divine Realms. That leaves plenty for us to deal with, one way or another. Any other questions?"**

**The pages shook their heads.**

"**Today we commence with a knight's primary weapon," Wyldon informed them. Sergeant Ezeko came forward pushing a barrel set on a small, wheeled cart. The barrel was stuffed with wooden practice swords.**

"**Take one," he ordered. "Treat it as your own from this moment."**

"Brings back memories doesn't it Alanna?" Gary asked.

"Yeah," Alanna smiled. "I was so bad at swordplay at first."

Daine, Buri, Thayet, Numair, and Anders all stared. "Really?" Daine asked, shocked. "But you're so good now!"

Alanna nodded. "I'm sure I've told you."

"I don't believe you've mentioned it," Numair said mildly. The others nodded.

"Oh," Alanna said surprised. "Well, I was."

Gary snorted. "That's an understatement."

Alanna glared.

**No one handed a practice sword to Kel. **

Thayet scowled but didn't say anything.

**She was able to try several before choosing one. It felt easy in her grasp, almost feather-light after her lance. The exercises were like those for the staff; the thing to remember was that the weapon was shorter. They were paired off as usual. Wyldon and Ezeko took them through the basics, high blocks against high strikes, middle strikes to middle blocks, and low blocks against low strikes. Ezeko then led the older boys in more complex exercises as Lord Wyldon stayed with the first-years. To Kel's surprise, Neal practiced with the oldest pages. As a nobleman's son he'd been tutored in the use of a sword for the last seven years.**

Alanna grinned. "Didn't help him with me though."

**Lord Wyldon took Neal's place in the first-year pairs with Merric as his partner. Kel practiced with Esmond, and found she enjoyed it. Sword work was completely new, so she never had to worry about confusing it with anything she had learned in the Islands. Blocking and striking came easily. When the bell rang for the end of practice, she was sorry to quit. **

"Looks like she had a better time at it than you," Jon grinned at Alanna. Alanna just crossed her arms and seemed to pout. But of course the Lioness, the King's very own Champion, would never do something so childish so that couldn't possibly be what she was doing. Not to mention if she was, which she wasn't, no one in the room would be so stupid as to point it out. Therefore, no one commented and the Lioness was able to _NOT_ pout in peace.

**So was Esmond, it seemed – he actually gave her a friendly clap on the shoulder before he put away his practice sword.**

"I think I like him," Daine smiled.

Buri nodded her agreement as she added him to her list. She'd almost forgotten about it.

**After her last class, Kel trotted to her rooms, whistling cheerfully. She was tired and sore as always, but for once she was ahead of the others. It looked as if she would be cleaned up and ready to wait on Wyldon's table on time.**

**Once dressed in a fresh tunic, she opened her door cautiously, checking overhead for buckets and the floor for anything smelly. Locking up, Kel set off briskly. Two steps and her feet skidded out from under her; down she went on her back. When she finally managed to get to her feet, there was oil on her clothes and in her hair. The light cast by the hall torches had not shown her oil smeared on the gray flagstones.**

"This is ridiculous," Thayet cried. "Wyldon, I can't believe you just let those rotten boys get away with stuff like this!"

"Uh, boys will be boys?" Wyldon tried.

Thayet, Alanna, Buri and Daine just glared.

**Back into her room she went, to wash and change clothes again. As she dressed she heard the boys leaving for supper. Now she **_**was**_** going to be late.**

"Stupid boys," Thayet muttered.

**This time when she left her room she skirted the oil and trudged down the hall. Joren, Vinson, and Zahir waited for her near the mess hall.**

"**I guess you'll learn not to tattle," sneered Vinson.**

"**I didn't tattle," she said. "The servants told him."**

"**Never mind that," Joren said, glaring at Vinson. "You've had it easy, wench. That's at an end. You should have fled while you had the chance." Zahir opened the mess-hall door.**

"He's such a nasty little thing," Daine murmured.

"**You were going to be rid of me by now," she said, her voice ringing clear against the stone walls.**

**Vinson started to turn back. Joren grabbed his tunic and shoved him through the mess door.**

**Zahir called over his shoulder, "You won't be here come spring, **_**probationer**_**."**

"Actually, she will," Raoul smiled. "Guess she showed them in the end." The ladies smiled and relaxed while the men all sighed in relief at having narrowly avoided another round of strong, angry women.

**For her late arrival, Wyldon assigned Kel to wait on his table through the month of January. **

"Not her fault," Thayet whispered.

**His guests that night, two grizzled warriors form the northern army, spent the meal telling jokes about women who were never prompt. Kel had to remind herself often to be as stone.**

The women all glared at Wyldon again who was trying shrink down and make himself as small a target as possible. They could be really frightening sometimes. Not that he was frightened, he was just . . . cautious, yeah that's it.

**After that, she left her room to wait on Lord Wyldon by climbing through her shutters. She did it even when the drifts were high in the courtyard: snow could always be brushed off.**

Alanna shivered.

**Six days later Midwinter Festival began, celebrating the rebirth of the sun and of the year after the longest night of winter. There was no classroom work during the week-long holiday, so the pages could ready themselves to serve in the great banquet hall for each night of the feast. Kel had dreaded her first experience of waiting on the great people of the realm, but to her relief, the first-year pages were spared the ordeal of service in the public eye. Instead she spent the banquet hours at the head of the kitchen stairs. There the first-years passed the plates of food from the servants to the second-, third-, and fourth-year pages, who actually waited on the diners.**

**She decided that the worst part of her chore was constantly being under the eye of Master Oakbridge, the etiquette teacher. He missed nothing, either in the banquet hall or on the stairs. No one was allowed to relax for so much as a breath as long as the feasts went on. **

Raoul shuddered, "That must have been horrible!"

**Kel would have loved the chance to look inside the hall at the nobles and all their finery. In the Yamani Islands the holiday was spent in quiet, at home with family. The colorful celebrations of the Eastern Lands – with the great logs for the hearths, the fantastic structures of cakes and candy shaped like castles and immortals, the silk garlands, and the performances of players – were just a dim memory for her. She would have liked to see more than hot, sweaty kitchen folk and nervous, sweaty senior pages.**

"I didn't know that about the Yamanis," Raoul said. "I suppose that would have been a bit disappointing then."

**It was also annoying to have to wait the long hours until the pages' supper. Only after the king and queen led their guests to a ballroom were the pages released from duty. The squires got to wait on the great ones while the pages ate silently and fell into bed.**

Numair raised a brow, "Great ones?" he asked. Everyone else just shook their heads.

**The morning after the longest night of the year, the fourth day of the seven-day celebration, was the time when gifts were exchanges. They all took their packages to Salma so that when the servants came to lay the first fires of the year, they could also bring each page's gifts.**

**Kel had thought long and hard about her gifts. Neal was easy: she gave him one of her lucky cats, since he never came into her room without looking at them. "With your tongue," she wrote on her note to him, "you need all the luck you can get!"**

Alanna threw back her head and laughed while Wyldon just rolled his eyes. "Truer words were never spoken," he said. Everyone chuckled, they couldn't agree more.

**Gower received a silver noble for the work he did in her room. Money would not have been right for Salma. Instead Kel gave her a silver hummingbird pin from her trinket box.**

"That was sweet," Daine commented. "I'm sure there weren't many others who thought of her as well."

**The prince had been a source of worry. She thought it might be presumptuous to give him a present, but she really wanted to. **

"She really does over think things sometimes, doesn't she?" Gary asked.

"You have no idea," Anders replied rolling his eyes. "Unless of course there's a monster standing in front of her, then she doesn't usually think at all. She just charges right in."

**She gave him a small Yamani painting of a bridge over a forest stream. The colors were dreamlike: grays, faded blues and greens, stark browns. It always gave her a feeling of peace, and she hoped it would make Roald feel better about his coming marriage.**

"That really is very sweet of her to be so concerned for him about his marriage," Thayet smiled. "And really that gift was just perfect." Jon smiled and nodded.

**For Crown and the other sparrows she had gotten raisins and dried cherries, a rare treat for the birds. They were pecking at the fruit when Gower knocked on Kel's door.**

Daine smiled while Kitten and Goldstreak nodded their approval.

**In addition to her wash water he carried a sack containing three gifts. One came from Neal, a leather-bound volume about the female warriors who had once defended the realm of Tortall. **

"I think he gave me the same book when he was my squire," Alanna murmured.

**To Kel's surprise, Prince Roald gave her a blown glass horse no longer than her thumb. When she saw the flattened ears and the bared teeth, she laughed. It looked very like Peachblossom.**

Thayet and Jon smiled proudly. "You know he didn't give gifts to every page," Jon said.

**There was no name on the third gift. **

Alanna smirked and George winked at her, but because he is George, no one else caught it.

**Kel undid the crimson silk wrap to find a stone jar as broad as her palm. It was made of green jasper and the words "Bruise Balm" were carved into the stone stopper. Kel opened it and sniffed. The thick ointment inside had a delicate smell. Curious, she put a dab on a knuckle she had bruised in yesterday's hand-to-hand combat. The moment the bruise balm touched it, the ache that had plagued her all night stopped. By the time she had washed up and cleaned her teeth, the swelling had started to go down.**

Jon whistled lowly, "That's some pretty strong stuff," he said impressed. I wonder who gave it to her.

"Curious," George nodded in agreement with a twinkle in his eye. Myles glanced at George and Alanna and chuckled. Really, how could no one figure it out? One of the strongest healers in the realm was sitting in the room looking like the cat that ate the canary and everyone else was scratching their heads in confusion, except for her husband who was also looking a little smug. Myles shook his head.

**Neal banged on her door as she finished dressing. Kel let him in, remembering to leave the door open. "I love that little cat," he said, ruffling her hair. "Thank you."**

**Kel grinned. "You're welcome. Neal, who do you think sent me this?" She handed the jar to him.**

**Neal opened it, sniffed and frowned. He sniffed again, then waved a hand over the jar. "Ouch!" he cried, startled.**

Alanna bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"**Are you hurt?" she asked. What if the ointment was some kind of nasty trick? "What happened?"**

**Neal replaced the lid and offered the jar back to Kel. "There's **_**serious**_** healing spelled into this," he informed her. "It's worth its weight in gold."**

"Impressive," Numair remarked. "I wonder if we will find out who sent it."

"**But who?" Kel asked. "Who would give me such a thing?"**

"**Don't look at me." Neal tore up a dried cherry that had caused some disagreements among the sparrows. "I might have the skill to brew something like this in ten years, but only then. Wasn't there a note?"**

**Kel shook her head. She rested a hand on her belt-knife, wondering. She had never told Neal about the peerless blade with its plain sheath and hilt. Now she did, and showed him the knife.**

"**So maybe somebody with money and taste knows what a page needs and wants you to have it," he suggested as they went to breakfast. **

Alanna ducked her head so no one could see her smirk. She was having a terrible time keeping a straight face.

"**Too bad they couldn't arrange to have the Stump done away with for you."**

_Not for lack of trying, _Alanna frowned.

"**I don't want him done away with," she told him as they walked into the mess hall. "I just want him to take me off probation."**

Alanna glanced a Wyldon out of the corner of her eye looking thoughtful.

**Neal was about to reply but changed his mind. It didn't matter that he hadn't spoken.**

"**You watch," Kel informed him stubbornly. "I'll do so well he'll have to let me stay."**

Wyldon smiled. "That's true," he agreed. Alanna bit her lip, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing having Wyldon as a training master. Of course the whole probation bit was still completely unfair, but he had done a good job with the pages when he was the training master. Also, it really did seem like Kel had changed his mind about girls becoming knights. Considering how strictly conservative most of his views were and how much the other conservatives looked up to him, that was huge.

"**A wish for the new year," her friend said, passing her a tray. "So mote, it be."**

"**So mote," whispered Kel, and followed him into the line for breakfast.**

**With the Festival's end, winter settled in. The sparrows decided to make Kel's room their quarters. Each day they chirped what she hoped were encouraging remarks, not bird jokes, as she did her pre-dawn exercises. **

Daine giggled.

**They even ate from her hand as well as from the shallow dishes she'd found for them. Kel was grateful that none of the servants had complained about droppings. She would have hated to give up her feathered companions. The single-spot female, Crown, was particularly devoted over the gray days and cold nights, perching on Kel's shoulder whenever the girl was in her room. **

**In late January, Kel was studying in the library when she noticed that Seaver had come and gone three different times in one evening. He would take a volume, return at a trot with it, and find another. The last time he searched the shelves, she closed her own book and followed him. He turned into Joren's room.**

"Uh oh," Daine remarked.

"Here we go again," Buri sighed.

"She really can't stand bullies can she?" Gary chuckled.

"**You **_**still**_** haven't gotten it right," she heard Joren cry as Vinson giggled. "Are you deaf? We need the third book on the Hunger Wars in Galla!"**

"**You said it was the second volume on farming in Scanra." Kel had to strain to hear Seaver. Of all the new boys, he was the quietest. "You – ow!"**

"What happened?" Alanna demanded. This time everyone ignored her.

"**Hit him again, Vinson," Joren advised. "Knock the wax from his ears."**

"Meanie," squeaked Goldstreak. Kitten squawked something that didn't sound very flattering and nodded.

**Kel opened the door in time to see Vinson cuff Seaver. "Just when I finished most of my punishment work, too," she announced.**

"**It's the Lump," Vinson told Joren, as if the blond youth couldn't see that for himself.**

"He does have a knack for stating the obvious doesn't he?" Gary laughed.

Wyldon rolled his eyes, "You have no idea."

"**What will it take to get through your thick skull?" Joren demanded, getting to his feet. Vinson stepped to Kel's left, so the two third-years could come at her from either side. "Perhaps we ought to break it this time."**

Thayet shook her head, "Those boys are just rotten through and through."

"**Where's Zahir? Did he lose the belly for your silly games?" Kel asked. **

"Oh, good," Thayet sighed. "I was hoping he would come to his senses."

"See, he wasn't all bad," Jonathan exclaimed.

"**Seaver, please go."**

"No Seaver, stay and help. You'll feel better if you do," Alanna objected.

**Seaver looked from Vinson to Joren.**

"**Stay if you want," Joren said his eyes on Kel. "We'll bash you, too."**

**Vinson kicked Seaver without warning. Kel lunged, grabbing Vinson by the tunic, and hurled him into Joren. **

"Ha!" Thayet cheered.

**Seaver ran out of the room as the two older pages scrambled to get Kel.**

"Oh come on!" Alanna cried. "Don't tell me he's gonna get upset with her now too!"

**The rest went as she expected. She lost, but struck a few good blows she might not have managed earlier in the year. They all told Wyldon the traditional lie and took their punishment chores without complaint. At this rate, Kel thought, I won't have a free hour between now and summer solstice.**

**The next evening Kel, the prince, and Neal decided to study in Neal's room. They had just opened their books when someone knocked on the open door. It was Seaver, his books under one arm. Behind him stood Merric's sponsor, Faleron.**

"**I need help with mathematics," Seaver told Kel, his dark eyes meeting hers squarely. "Would you mind?"**

"He doesn't sound upset to me," George grinned. Alanna blinked and started to smile.

**Kel shook her head.**

"**You got space for me?" Faleron wanted to know. "I need to pick Neal's brain for this paper Sir Myles wants me to write. Besides, everybody knows its warmer with more people in the room."**

Myles chuckled, "Of course it is," he nodded.

**They had excuses that first time, but apparently making up fresh ones after that was too much work. **

Raoul grinned, "Why bother? You know she saw right through them anyway."

**Merric came with them the next night and gave no explanation at all. **

"I knew he'd come around eventually," Buri added.

**The newcomers became regular additions to Neal's study group. If the boys noticed that Kel left the group once an evening and came back rosy-cheeked from a run through the halls, none of them commented.**

"Well why aren't they going with her?" Gary wanted to know. Everyone else shrugged.

**Longtime palace residents said it was the hardest winter in over a decade. Servants labored to clear paths between the outbuildings and the palace. Game grew scarce as the weeks remained cold and snows piled high. In February, Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko led the pages on an overnight hike, teaching them how to dress and camp in heavy snow. Joren picked up the tracks of a lone deer that led them to a small herd. **

"Why did it have to be Joren?" Thayet grumbled.

**When they took the meat to a village that had been cut off from supplies they were welcomed gratefully.**

**The pages warmed up now with staffs, then moved on to sword practice. Only a day a week was spent in more complex staff work. After three weeks. Kel told Neal that she was so out of practice with pole arms that the most timid of the emperor's ladies would be able to gut her with the glaive in a flash. **

Gary laughed, "There's that sense of humor again Jon."

Jonathan shook his head. "Remind me to take you down to the practice courts when Shinko and the other ladies are practicing, I think you'll change your mind about that."

Thayet smirked.

**Neal found this infinitely amusing and told Kel that he admired her sense of humor.**

**Kel blinked at him. "I'm serious, Neal."**

**He patted her shoulder. "Of course you are."**

"**One day you and I will visit the Islands," she informed him, "and then you will know better."**

"Or you'll just introduce him to one of your Yamani friends, let him fall head over heels and she can show him herself," Alanna laughed.

**Reviewing her schedule, Kel decided she could fit in a pattern dance before supper, and another before she went to bed. Pattern dances were linked techniques, to give the dancer practice in combat moves when no opponents were about. That night she forced herself to do a complex dace just before supper. She did a simpler one before she went to sleep. The exercises became a permanent addition to her routine.**

"Seriously! More extra exercises on top of the other extra exercises she's already doing?" Gary exclaimed.

**The work she put into pattern dances and exercises for her arms began to show in practice. As her sword skills improved, Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko began to pair her with older pages. No one objected until one afternoon in late February, when Lord Wyldon was called away from the court. When he left, the older pages moved around. Kel, found herself facing Zahir.**

**Uh-oh, she thought as the Bazhir's dark eyes blazed. I'm in trouble now.**

"I thought he was over this," Daine sighed.

"Didn't they already try something like this once before?" Raoul wanted to know.

Wyldon frowned.

**They began with the strike-and-block combinations. Ezeko stood over them as they moved on to combinations like three high cuts, two low, with blocks to match. He watched Kel and Zahir through two complete sets and part of a third, then walked down the line to see how Quinden did against Faleron. The moment the sergeant's eyes were elsewhere, Zahir hissed, "It's time for you to take you place behind the veil, where you belong!"**

"Why that rotten, arrogant, spiteful piece of stormwing sewage!" Thayet cried. Alanna turned red with fury. Daine was glaring so hard at the poor book that the pages started to shrivel. Raoul was remaining amazingly calm, perhaps because he had spent so much time among the Bazhir the insult really wasn't all that surprising. Besides, he didn't have the Lioness' infamous temper. He was however, listing off different King's Own members in his head whom he could pass this little bit of information to. "I hope she kicks his stuck-up little ass!" Thayet declared as Numair was muttering some spell in an effort to save the innocent book from Daine's wrath.

**He broke the drill, banging Kel's legs hard as he swung up and he followed; when he struck overhand, she knocked his sword aside and struck him in the ribs. "We don't wear veils!" she whispered in reply.**

"Exactly!" Alanna declared. "We have nothing to be ashamed of!" All the ladies cheered in response.

**Zahir growled, "A woman out of her place is a distraction to men!" and struck her repeatedly until Kel kicked him in the stomach to make him back off. **

"Oh really?" Daine asked innocently. "Just what kind of distraction might that be? What exactly are you trying to say Zahir?"

"Good one!" Alanna cackled.

**Joren, Vinson, and a few other boys closed around them to cut them off from the sergeant's view.**

"I told you, they already tried this," Raoul pointed out.

"Yes, but last time it was with the staff," Gary pointed out. "Maybe they think they stand a better chance with a sword."

**Neal saw them bunch up and came to Kel's defense, dragging Zahir's friends out of his way. **

Everyone cheered. "Finally she has some backup!" Buri grinned.

**When Vinson hit Neal from behind, the prince yanked Vinson off him. **

"Alright Roald!" Jonathan cheered.

**Merric threw himself onto Joren's back. **

"Now you can get a piece of him yourself," Wyldon smiled.

"Wait, aren't you supposed to disapprove of the pages fighting?" Alanna asked him.

"Probably," he replied then grinned. "I'm not exactly training master anymore though am I?"

**Faleron and Seaver went for Zahir. The battle ended only when Sergeant Ezeko waded in and pulled everyone apart.**

**Lord Wyldon was livid. **

"See, I didn't approve then," Wyldon pointed out.

**He sentenced all of them to a week of early-evening duty in the palace laundry. The laundrymaids, a set of rough, no-nonsense women with muscles that Kel envied, had a field day with the lads assigned to help them.**

Everyone laughed at that.

"**It's not fair," Merric grumbled as he wrung out sheets. "Zahir started it."**

"**But you lot didn't have to pitch in," Kel reminded him. "Besides, this may be the only time all winter that we get the mud out from under our nails."**

"Does she always try to look for the silver lining?" Gary asked.

**Merric glowered at her, and Kel waited for the explosion. Instead he shook his head, smiling wryly. "Don't you get mad about **_**anything?**_**" he demanded in amused exasperation. "You know they call you the Lump."**

"That's not very flattering," Buri commented wryly.

"**I try not to **_**show**_** anger," Kel explained. "The Yamanis won't talk to you if you let your feelings out. To them it's like picking your nose at a table. Besides, haven't you noticed how tiring losing your temper is?"**

"I never thought about it like that," Gary mused. "Alanna have you ever thought about it like that?" he questioned.

"Shut up, Gary," Alanna grumbled.

"I think you'll find that if you make her lose her temper, you will end up rather tired too!" George chuckled then kissed her on her head affectionately. Alanna smiled wryly.

"**I've noticed it gets you punishment," the redheaded boy replied with a shrug. "Maybe it's the same thing."**

"**Well, you're tired at the end of both, so there you are," Kel said practically. "Help me wring out this blanket?"**

Daine sighed happily, "Things definitely worked out better at the end of this chapter!" Numair smiled at her as she snuggled up next to him

"Well let's keep the good times rolling," Buri replied sitting back and opening the book to the next chapter. George and Alanna had their heads down and their shoulders were shaking with the effort to conceal their laughter. Wyldon glared at the two of them as Buri blinked at the book in her hands. _Wait a minute, _she thought. _How did I end up with the book?_


End file.
